Colour field: a former warehouse is boldly revitalised to provide a community and urban focus.

El Centro del Pueblo in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles is the kind of building block that every inner-city community needs: a nonprofit institution, run by dedicated professionals and volunteers, which weans youths away from drugs and gangs by infusing them with a sense of hope and self-esteem. Thanks to generous grants from the S. Mark Taper Foundation and other donors, it has recently acquired a new home, a 1000sqm warehouse inventively remodelled by Fernando Vazquez, a Uruguayan-born architect who is constantly bringing high drama to simple projects in his adopted city. Drawing on the Latino heritage of vibrant street architecture, he created a dynamic shopping centre behind the facade of The Citadel (a former 1920s tyre factory resembling an Assyrian fortress) in the aptly named City of Industry. More recently, he designed a Constructivist bicycle station of tubular metal in Long Beach. His home in the oceanfront community of Venice is a laboratory for games of perspective and he's applied those lessons here.

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The Anglo establishment in Los Angeles tends to be as timid with colour as it is with coffee, turning everything into a bland latte, and rearing like a startled horse whenever a neighbour defies the norm. Most Latinos revel in bright hues and black brews, and they will soon constitute a majority in southern California. For Vazquez, who grew up in the Modernist white city of Montevideo, and went to school in Argentina, colour was something to discover on trips through Central America and in the barrios of east Los Angeles and midtown. He worked with the environmental graphics firm of Sussman/Prezja, which devised the hot, festive palette for the LA Olympics of 1984 (AR August 1984), before opening his own office and taking on projects in Japan.

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A few smart moves transformed the generic, windowless, white stucco box. To pull in natural light while shielding the interior from the street, Vazquez pushed out a ground-floor bay with a strip of glass at the side, and opened up a big window at the upper level. Bold accents of magenta and orange on the facade provide a sense of place, and create a new abstract geometry that plays off the exuberant mural on the neighbouring property. The second floor is cut away in front to form a double-height lobby, and allow natural light to penetrate the corridors that extend to the rear of the building. These are treated as village streets, with grey linoleum in place of asphalt, and angled planes that enclose activity rooms and offices. These planes animate the corridors, shifting perspectives and alternately concealing and revealing glass entry doors. To suggest a row of house fronts, they are painted in sizzling yellows and oranges below, and cooler blues and greens above. The colours draw you into the building and lift your spirits.

Skylights in the corridors and studios bring natural light to every space. Materials were chosen for their economy and durability: gypsum-board walls and ceilings, linoleum floors, and exposed insulation in the studios. These are tested to the full every day. Activities on offer include boxing and weights, aerobics, gymnastics, martial arts, and dance. There's a computer lab-library, a classroom, cafe, and lounge. Every space is fully used, and plans are being made to expand into the adjoining property. To the south is a garden with a court for basketball and volleyball. This is as impeccably maintained as any neighbourhood park on the affluent Westside, and there is no graffiti on the building--a sure sign that it has won local respect. Vazquez, working with Ena Dubnoff of ONE Company Architecture, has created a disciplined exterior and a liberating interior: a metaphor for the youths and mentors who use this rejuvenated community focus.

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