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Chava Danielson
Senior Lecturer
Teaches In
Environmental Design
Education: 

MArch, Harvard Graduate School of Design
B. A., UC Berkeley; Magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Department honors

Bio/Affiliation: 

Chava Danielson, AIA is Principal of DSH // architecture, a practice with a portfolio of award-winning projects ranging from tactile, light-infused and materially rich environments to those that foreground architecture's responsibility to urban communities.

Danielson leads DSH's civic and child-centered work, including early education centers in which alternatives to conventional practices are employed to spark curiosity and wonder in the minds of young children. She focuses on imparting beauty and sensitive programming to recharge underserved neighborhoods through educational, therapeutic and residential projects for non-profits committed to the community. With Larchmont Charter High School, the inventive adaptive reuse of an architecturally significant office building catalyzed an entire neighborhood’s revitalization, while also continuing DSH's forward-looking approach to historic preservation established with the seminal rehabilitation of Rudolph Schindler’s Bubeshko Apartments.

Danielson has served as Chair of the Political Outreach Committee of the AIA Los Angeles, as a Director for the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design, and was a founding board member of the Larchmont Charter Schools. She was most recently Adjunct Professor at Otis College of Art and Design, where she continues to teach architectural design studios and courses in urban history and theory. She has taught design at Woodbury University, Cal Poly Pomona and at USC's Price School in the Executive Master of Urban Planning program.

Awards/Honors: 
  • Fast Company Innovation by Design Award, Social Good Category, 2019
  • Architect's Newspaper, Best of Design, Unbuilt Interiors 2018
  • Los Angeles Business Council Architectural Award, 2018, 2010
  • Otis College Faculty Development Grants 2018; 2015
  • Docomomo US Residential Design Award of Excellence, 2018
  • Westside Urban Forum Design Award, Public/Institutional, 2017
  • Architizer A+ Award Finalist: Architecture + 3-D Printing, 2017
  • Modular Building Institute Architectural Excellence in Education Design, 2013
  • AIACC Merit Award for Architecture, 2010
  • Residential Architect Design Award, 2010
  • Los Angeles Conservancy Preservation Award, 2010
  • Governor's Historic Preservation Award, 2010
  • AIA Los Angeles Design Honor Award, 2009
  • San Francisco Prize, 2nd Place, Philip Burton Federal Building Plaza Design Competition (1996)
Publications:  
  • Editor, The Los Angeles Forum Reader, Actar Press (2018)
  • Fast Company (September 2019),"The Year's Best Design for Social Good," project: Vine Street Early Head Start Center
  • Architect's Newspaper (December 2018), "Best of Design Awards," project: Children's Institute Hub at Long Beach
  • Archinect (July 2017), "Closer Look: DSH Architecture Restores Rudolph Schindler's historic Bubeshko Apartments"
  • AIA California online (October 2017), "Preserving Schindler"
  • Nanotecture: Tiny Built Things (2016), project: Cat's Cradle
  • Dezeen (March 2016), "LA Architects Create Imaginative Cat Houses," project: Spiral Kitty
  • The Architect's Newspaper (March 2016), "LA Cat-itecture for a Cause," project: Spiral Kitty
  • Dwell Magazine (2015) "Secondary Education" project: Larchmont Charter High at Lafayette Park
  • Saving Places - National Trust for Historic Preservation (October 2015), "A Lesson in Adaptive Reuse and Urbanism," project: Larchmont Charter High at Lafayette Park
  • Dwell (February 2012), "Self-Preservation," project: Bubeshko Apartments
  • Los Angeles Times (March 2011), "A Hollywood Hills Remodel that Glows with Light, Color," project: Nylon Habitat
  • Residential Architect (May/June 2010), project Bubeshko Apartments Rehabilitation
  • Los Angeles Times (March 2010), "The People's Courts," project: Bubeshko Apartments Rehabilitation