NOMA debuts new designs for destroyed Altadena school at SMC
On Friday, July 24, at Santa Monica College’s Center for Media and Design, around 30 high school students from across Southern California showcased their plans to rebuild the Odyssey Charter School — one of the four local schools destroyed in the 2025 Eaton Fire.
The event — which meets monthly before concluding with an intensive one-week summer camp and updates its theme biennially — was organized by the Southern California Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (SoCal NOMA). Following the devastation of the 2025 fires, this year's theme continued last year’s, titled “Rebuilding Altadena.”
Electrice Harris, director of the Project Pipeline Programs at SoCal NOMA, underscored how close to home the Eaton Fire struck the organization: “We chose it because 10 of our personal members of SoCal NOMA lost their home.”
The 10 members who lost their homes were the focus of last year's event. Affected members presented their visions for the rebuilt homes, and students then showcased their designs.
“They found out that they had neighbors coming to them asking for help because they're architects,” said Harris. “We went from our 10 members to 40 people, and now we have 400 residents in Altadena that we are helping to navigate the rebuilding process.”
The fire destroyed over 6,000 homes—with nearly half of all Black-owned households destroyed or severely damaged—and displaced over 100,000 residents, according to a study by UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies.
“Altadena was traditionally an African-American community,” said Harris. “When 6,000 homes were burned down, it was a natural selection.”
Beginning in the early 1950s, Altadena became a hub of African-American homeownership due to the post-World War II industrial boom and the outlawing of redlining—the practice of denying mortgages based on race—in the Los Angeles area. By 1970, Black homeownership in Altadena was over 80%.
Another core principle of SoCal NOMA’s mission is to increase diversity in the field of architecture. According to the National Council of Architecture Registration Boards (NCARB), only 21% of licensed architects in the United States identify as people of color.
Harris explained that the Architecture Boot Camp exists to fill a growing educational gap after most public school drafting courses vanished nationwide: “The engineering courses still have a drafting component, but it doesn't focus on them being architects—it focuses on them being engineers, which is a completely different career path.”
To increase students’ exposure to that vital component of architecture, SoCal NOMA places a significant emphasis on serving historic minority communities such as Altadena. Past years' themes focused on major developments in other minority communities in Los Angeles: SoFi Stadium in Inglewood and Destination Crenshaw in South Central Los Angeles.
“It came down to students and the schools,” Harris remarked. About future SoCal NOMA projects and rebuilding Altadena, she said, “Again, it's a community project that has a major impact on a minority community and our members. Since it's going to take some time to rebuild the entirety of Altadena, we may do business districts next year—I'm not really sure where we're going with it yet.”