Dingbat apartments, with their famously vulnerable “soft story,” are at the heart of the new Los Angeles earthquake retrofitting law. Read the LA Times article for an in depth look at this city-wide issue.

Above: Dingbat 2.0 competition winners Carmen Cham, James Black and Tyler Goss imagine a new (safer) footprint for medium density housing in dingbat neighborhoods using “Microparcelization” to replace dingbats with small single-family homes on small lots.