Peter Tolkin + Sarah Lorenzen Architecture

Peter Tolkin + Sarah Lorenzen Architecture We are a design practice based in Los Angeles that specializes in institutional, commercial, and res

We are a design practice based in Los Angeles, California that specializes in institutional, commercial, and residential architecture for the private and public realm.

TOLO Architecture designed the Downtown Los Angeles gallery space for Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. The 11,00...
01/23/2026

TOLO Architecture designed the Downtown Los Angeles gallery space for Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. The 11,000 square feet gallery is located in an adaptive reuse of a former tire factory. The gallery features numerous large exhibition spaces, a video room, reception area with conference room, break room, office, and storage area. TOLO’s design focused on maintaining the character of the old tire factory and inserting a series of floor-to-ceiling white walls to display the artwork.

Status: Built
Year: 2019
Size: 10,900 SF
Project Team: Peter Tolkin, Sarah Lorenzen, Trenman Yau, Albert Escobar
Construction: James Anderson
Drywall SubContractor: Salvador Menjivar, The Carpenter Drywall Co.
Photographer: Robert Wedemeyer

Taking the Reins is a non-profit organization that helps adolescent at-risk girls develop self-esteem, teamwork, respons...
01/21/2026

Taking the Reins is a non-profit organization that helps adolescent at-risk girls develop self-esteem, teamwork, responsibility, and leadership skills by learning to ride and care for horses. The organization asked us to renovate an existing horse facility next to the Los Angeles River into an urban farm and educational complex. Following a series of design charrettes with the users, we developed the project to integrate horse stables, learning spaces, and a vegetable garden so that program participants would learn about animals, sustainable agriculture, environmental stewardship, and healthful eating.

Status: Unbuilt
Year: 2007
Size: 20,000 SF (Building) 2.4 acres (Site)
Project Team: Peter Tolkin, Emily Gilmar, Chris Girt, Almodina Lopez

Renowned visual artist and professor Charles Gaines commissioned TOLO Architecture to renovate his arts studio complex i...
01/08/2026

Renowned visual artist and professor Charles Gaines commissioned TOLO Architecture to renovate his arts studio complex in Huntington Park (a neighborhood just south of Downtown Los Angeles). TOLO has a longstanding relationship with Gaines, having worked on the artist’s home, former arts studio, and his award-winning kinetic sculpture ‘Moving Chains’ (2022).

The studio arts complex, located in an industrial sawtooth-roofed warehouse, needed renovating to combine office operations, studio and exhibition space, and storage into a cohesive work environment for the production and display of art. The warehouse, which dates back to the early 1940s, features clerestory windows and an open floor plan made possible by its long-span structural system. These features made the space highly conducive to art production thanks to the spatial flexibility and abundant natural light illuminating the interior.

The new art studio complex includes an open space for painting, an isolated “clean” drawing room, a staff break room, a glass-enclosed office space and conference room, storage space, and an exhibition gallery. Additionally, a second-floor loft space was converted into a private workspace and soundproof drum-practice space for the artist.

A shaded courtyard used for social gatherings and scholarship fundraisers was designed in collaboration with landscape designer Wade Graham. Its mature olive trees (rescued from a farm in the Central Valley that was about to clear them) and fountain provide a respite from the complex’s industrial setting.

Status: Built
Size: 10,164 SF
Completed 2021
Project Team: Peter Tolkin, Trenman Yau, Sarah Lorenzen
Landscape Architecture: Wade Graham Studio
Structural Engineering: Charles Tan
MEP Engineering: Building Solutions Group, Inc.
General Contractor: Itamar Azulay
Photography: David Hartwell

See more in Gay Gassmann’s article “Tour the L.A. Studio of Renowned Artist Charles Gaines” in Architectural Digest, November 5, 2021

Claremont’s Town Square is nestled in an urban block of mixed-use infill buildings. A public space modeled after the tra...
01/06/2026

Claremont’s Town Square is nestled in an urban block of mixed-use infill buildings. A public space modeled after the traditional European piazza, the Town Square is bound by retail and restaurant spaces with offices above, a boutique hotel, and a cinema. The planters, seating and fountain elements were conceived as a ‘pixilation’ of the natural landscape of the nearby foothills, with native plants and shade trees in contrast to the synthetic landscape. These elements, along with the playful sculptures of artist Tom Otterness, activate the central space, as do the pedestrians using the surrounding stores.

Status: Built
Year: 2008
Size: 6,000 sq ft of open space

Project Team: Peter Tolkin, Zack Vourlas, Tinka Rogic, Christopher Girt, Josh Koelweyn
Engineers: Aquatic Creations (Fountain), Electrical Building Systems (Electrical), Associated Engineers (Civil)
Landscape: Toyon Design
General Contractor: 4-Con Engineering, Inc.
Artist:Tom Otterness
Photographer: Peter Tolkin

2008 Excellence in Design Award, Public Art Category, City of Claremont Architectural Commission, Claremont Village Square Fountain

These solid paper stools are cast from 100% recycled corrugated cardboard pulp and finished with natural dyes, tung oil ...
12/31/2025

These solid paper stools are cast from 100% recycled corrugated cardboard pulp and finished with natural dyes, tung oil and beeswax. The project originated from our interest in re-purposing post-consumer waste. We also studied several precedents: Ray Eames’ walnut stools from 1959, Frank Gehry’s 1972 Wiggle Stool, and traditional African stools. Initially shaped by hand, we used digital processes to derive the final shapes and to produce the water-jet cut aluminum molds to cast the stools. As did its precedents, Three Stools (Samples) can be used as seating, side tables and art objects.

Status: Built
Year: 2012
Project Team: Peter Tolkin, Jeremy Schacht, Kevin Pazmina, David Burns, Arthur Zohrabians
Photographer: Peter Tolkin

Branch House is located in an oak grove that runs through a subdivision of one acre lots with single-family ranch style ...
12/30/2025

Branch House is located in an oak grove that runs through a subdivision of one acre lots with single-family ranch style homes built in the San Yisdro Ranch area of Montecito. The predominant natural features of the site include the San Ysidro Creek that the property backs up to and the native grove of coastal live oaks that once blanketed the coastal hillside. Our architecture seeks to forge a closer relationship with the site and its vegetation, an approach that is sensitive to both the past and the local ecology. Working closely with an arborist, the volumes of the house are laid out amongst the existing oak trees and hovering on a concrete plane above the ground.

In contrast to the more traditional homes common to the area, clearly demarking front and back yards, Branch House is arranged in the round, on a single level, as a cluster of program volumes each with its own unique orientation to light and view. An interstitial connecting spine lined with glass serves the dual purpose as the home’s main circulation and as a gallery for the display of art. In addition to a primary view towards the landscape, each volume has a secondary source of light and view through a skylight. The effect is to give the home the sense of being amongst the oak grove.

Status: Built
Year Completed: 2018
Size: house 4,400 SF; studio 500 SF
Project Team: Peter Tolkin, Jeremy Schacht, Albert Escobar
Engineers: Joseph Perazzelli (Structural), Michael Viettone Civil Engineering (Civil)
General Contractor: RHC Construction Inc.
Landscape: Wade Graham Landscape Studio
Lighting Designer: Lighting Design Alliance
Energy Consultant: Monterey Energy Group, Inc.
Arborist: Westree Inc.
Photographer: David Hartwell

Honor Award, 2020 AIA|LA Residential Architecture Awards, Branch House
2019 Residential Architect Design Awards, “Custom Home More than 3000 square feet,” Architect Magazine

The Palace is an adaptive re-use project of an old brick livery stable from the 19th century located in Old Pasadena. Af...
12/24/2025

The Palace is an adaptive re-use project of an old brick livery stable from the 19th century located in Old Pasadena. After its original use as a stable, the building went through a variety of transformations serving as a warehouse, an auto garage, and a public market. We were asked to retrofit the building to meet current seismic requirements and redesign it to accommodate three office spaces. To recapture the original character of the building we brought back the original stable entrance, exposed and refinished the original carpenter-truss structure, and added new strip lighting and skylights.

Status: Built
Year: 1996
Size: 3,000 SF Adaptive Re-use Area
Project Team: Peter Tolkin, Christine Bräm
Engineers: Uniteck (Structural)
General Contractor: George Hopkins Construction
Photographer: Peter Tolkin

The Metlox complex in Manhattan Beach was a mixed-use project sited at the former Metlox Potteries factory three blocks ...
12/23/2025

The Metlox complex in Manhattan Beach was a mixed-use project sited at the former Metlox Potteries factory three blocks from the Manhattan Beach Pier. It includes a 40-room inn, two restaurants, a spa, a bakery, several retail spaces, second-floor office space, and two levels of underground parking. The centerpiece is an outdoor “living room” in the tradition of the European piazza, surrounded by stucco, stone, and cement-board clad retail buildings. This town square is activated by a sculptural fountain, art objects, a kiln-shaped fireplace, and a sycamore grove where visitors and locals can gather to rest and play.

Status: Built
Year: 2005
Size: 74,000 SF
Project Team: Peter Tolkin
Engineers: Thornton-Tomasetti / Coil & Welsh (Structural), Guthrie & Associates (Mechanical), Empire 3 (Electrical)
General Contractor: Pankow Builders
Acoustical: Rothermel Associates
Lighting Design: Fox + Fox Design
Landscape Architect: Wade Graham Landscape Studio
Artist: Susan Narduli
Photographer: Paul Turang

2008 Merit Award, American Institute of Architects, Pasadena / Foothill Chapter

An abstraction of Thai culture, Saladang Song consists of indoor and patio dining with an open kitchen on the ground flo...
12/16/2025

An abstraction of Thai culture, Saladang Song consists of indoor and patio dining with an open kitchen on the ground floor, employee areas on the second floor, and a third floor penthouse apartment. The project’s design and name references the traditional Thai “sala,” a roadside pavilion used by travelers to rest and reflect. Enclosing the outdoor patio are monolithic concrete slabs, poured on site and raised into place, that are paired with ornate laser-cut steel screens inspired by traditional Thai textiles. Screening this space offers diners a sense of protection while still maintaining a strong relationship to the street.

Status: Built
Year: 2001
Size: 11,000 SF
Project Team: Peter Tolkin, John R. Byram, Christopher Girt, Craig Rizzo, Anthony Denzer
Engineers: Kurily Szymanski Tchirkow, Inc. (Structural), Herb Cooper (Civil), Jerry Kovacs & Associates (Geotech), Khalifeh & Associates (MEP)
Lighting: Eddie Effron
Landscape: Wade Graham Landscape
Fountain Design: Wet Design
Photographer: Grant Mudford

2005 Honor Award, American Institute of Architects
2002 Certificate of Recognition, California State Assembly
2001 Citation Award, American Institute of Architects
2001 Restaurant Design Award, Finalist, James Beard Foundation
2001 Award of Merit, Pasadena Beautiful Foundation.

This project consists of an interior renovation of a historic building in South Pasadena for a graphic design/advertisin...
11/24/2025

This project consists of an interior renovation of a historic building in South Pasadena for a graphic design/advertising agency. To meet the needs of the client we inserted two similarly proportioned “boxes” at different scales into the small space—the larger box serves as a multi-person workstation and the smaller box serves as a receptionist/bookkeeper desk whose volume also defines an open conference area. To give the space a contemporary architectural identity the interior is treated as a synthetic intervention within the existing shell displayed in relief through material and aesthetic contrasts.

Status: Built
Year Completed: 2001
Size: 1,000 SF, 300 SF Mezzanine
Project Team: Peter Tolkin, Christopher Girt, Anthony Denzer, Eric Townsend
Structural Engineer: Kurily Szymanski Tchirkow, Inc.
Custom Millwork: Robert Espinoza, Lignum Studio
Photographer: Peter Tolkin

CalArts asked us to develop a prototypical design strategy for their graphic design studios. We developed a kit-of-parts...
11/11/2025

CalArts asked us to develop a prototypical design strategy for their graphic design studios. We developed a kit-of-parts desk and storage modules, kitchen design, bench, and printing/storage station. The school asked us to configure the furniture and spatial layout to give the students spaces to work, socialize, collaborate, and learn. The faculty also asked us for an environment where students would feel at “home” but also denote it as a “professional” workspace.

Our approach to the renovation was to remove as much from the space as was necessary to reveal the original character of the building, and then to layer on new components that address the contemporary needs of CalArts’ students. The aesthetics of the project arose from the schism between old and new. The steel and plywood desks were designed to nest in various ways allowing for multiple studio configurations. The magnetic marker board surfaces laminates bring color to the space and designate where students can store their things, scribble their ideas, and pin-up their work.


Status: Built
Year: 2023
Size: 1,630 SF
Project Team: Peter Tolkin, Sarah Lorenzen, Trenman Yau, Brittany Jones
Photographer: David Hartwell

This small building used as an art studio for a photographer is sited in the backyard of a 1920s Craftsman bungalow. We ...
11/05/2025

This small building used as an art studio for a photographer is sited in the backyard of a 1920s Craftsman bungalow. We addressed the building’s Arts & Crafts context through our material choices and expressive construction details. The design is based on a layered wall system, analogous to a shipping crate, that is “ornamented” with screws in a code prescribed nailing pattern. The design also clearly distinguishes the vertical structural system of the redwood posts, the lateral structural system of the plywood shear panels, and the interior walls used to display art.

Status: Built
Year Completed: 1999
Project Team: Peter Tolkin
Structural Engineer: Harout Soghomonian
General Contractor: Roman Janczak Construction
Photographer: Peter Tolkin

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Los Angeles, CA
90021

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