Speaking of keeping busy, TCA has a number of projects under construction totaling around $430 million dollars. These projects include: Hikari, a project in LA’s Little Tokyo district with The Related Companies, Waterstone at Playa Vista with Intracorp, Northpark in San Jose and Woodbury Apartments with Irvine Apartment Communities, Bella Vista in Los Angeles with Equity Residential, 1100 Wilshire and Metro 417 with Forest City Development, Sunset Lofts on Sunset Blvd with Legacy Partners, Library Gardens in Berkeley with Transaction Group, Avalon Wilshire with Avalon Bay Communities, Trio in

This year’s $10,000 Tournament Sponsor was Option One Mortgage/HR Block and $5000 Platinum Sponsors included Forest City Enterprises, LDI Mechanical/Parks Mechanical, Suffolk Construction, New Century Financial, TCA and Dale Christian Structural Engineers.

Different from most architectural awards, the Charter Award looks at how plans and projects integrate with their surrounding environments, from blocks to neighborhoods to entire regions. Congress for the New Urbanism president John Norquist said the winners demonstrate the power of planning and design work that insists on excellence not only in architecture, but also in its relationship with surroundings.

The attached homes are 1360 square feet, four bedrooms, one full bath, two half baths, living room, dining area, kitchen and a two-car garage. TCA is a major $100,000 donor with funds from their annual golf tournament revenue.

These homes in Cypress are Habitat for Humanity of Orange County’s 113th-119th homes. These homes were sold to qualified low-income families for a 1% down payment and a no-interest mortgage. Each family is expected to contribute 500 hours of labor by building their home or volunteering for the Habitat organization.

Daniel P. Gehman, AIA was promoted to Principal and is one of TCA’s most talented architects and staff mentor. He oversees a design studio and is currently working on a number of TCA’s high-profile projects in downtown Los Angeles which include a $250 million mixed-use development in Little Tokyo known as Block 8 and several high-rise adaptive re-use condominium conversion projects. Gehman is a regular speaker on architectural design, lending his expertise at the Urban Land Institute’s annual Multifamily Trends Conference, Multi-Housing World and AIA (The American Institute of Architects.)

Decorations of red, white and blue balloons, adorned the location as attendees arrived dressed patriotic apparel. Festivities included an assortment of team competitions such as the traditional three-legged race, a water balloon toss, volleyball, ping-pong tournaments, and a watermelon eating contest. Clowns twisted balloon animals and artists painted faces as kids ransacked their stars and striped goodie-bags for prizes and candy.

Ground has been broken for the mixed-use building that was designed by the Los Angeles and Irvine, CA, firm TCA. The project has five stories of residential over ground-level retail and four levels of underground parking. 7950 West Sunset is being developed by Legacy Partners and the land is owned by the Director’s Guild of America adjacent to its national headquarters building at 7920 Sunset Boulevard.

TCA project manager John Brooks, AIA, said the Guild management as well as surrounding neighborhood groups was deeply involved in the 7950 West Sunset design process to ensure