An adaptive reuse project has transformed USC’s historic 1931 United University Church into the new home for its School of Dramatic Arts (SDA).

Built in 1911, the Rose Garden Tea Room at the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens was originally designed as a billiard room and bowling alley for Henry E. Huntington.

After taking more than two decades to realize, the 235-ft-tall (W)rapper is the latest part of an ongoing 35-year revitalization and adaptive reuse plan for a former industrial and manufacturing zone.

Constructing the four trapezoidal sides of Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s sculptural gem, a 75-ft-tall “machine for gathering” with three sloping faces, was the most daunting aspect of the project. “The concern was the facade,” says Stephen Montoya, vice president of operations for MATT Construction.

Structural concerns, hazardous materials abatement and historic preservation guidelines challenged the project team on this renovation.

As the first residential high-rise to be built west of the 405 Freeway in more than 40 years, the Landmark Los Angeles (LMLA) is a glass-and-steel structure rising 349 ft featuring floor-to-ceiling windows, horizontal balcony planes and glass guardrails intersected by vertical elements to a rooftop cornice.

An expansion to the historic 1929 Wilshire Boulevard Temple, this new pavilion is architecturally compatible with its surroundings.

Students at the independent college prep school received a unique lesson in construction planning and execution via the complex three-phase project that brings the historic campus into the 21st century.