One team.Sketch to keys.About L Square: Licensed ADU Design-Build in Orange County

L Square Design & Build is an in-house ADU design-build firm based in Orange County. We handle architecture, structural engineering, permitting and construction under one contract (CSLB #1095476) and have completed 200+ projects across Orange County and Los Angeles, including detached, attached, garage-conversion and junior ADUs.

L Square Design & Build manages the full ADU process in Orange County: design, engineering, permits and construction, as one in-house design-build team. There is one contract and one point of accountability from first sketch to final inspection (CSLB #1095476, 200+ projects completed across Orange County and Los Angeles).

Yes. L Square Design & Build holds California contractor license #1095476, and is insured and bonded. You do not have to take our word for it: the Contractors State License Board publishes every license, so you can enter 1095476 in the CSLB license check and read the status, classification, bond and workers-compensation record yourself. Do this for any contractor you are considering, not only for us.

It removes the gap between the architect and the builder. On a split contract, the designer draws, hands over, and the builder prices what was drawn, so anything impractical becomes a change order that you pay for. We draw, engineer, permit and build with the same team, which means the person who will pour the slab has seen the plan before it is submitted. One contract, one schedule, one party responsible when something is wrong.

Brian Leung and Kiko Zhou own L Square. Brian is a CSLB-licensed General Contractor (#1095476) with an MBA from UC Irvine and leads construction and operations. Kiko Zhou is an interior designer and contractor, UC Irvine, and brings design sensibility to every build so each ADU lives well and adds real property value. The team works in Cantonese, Mandarin and English.

Orange County and Los Angeles County. That covers Irvine, Santa Ana, Newport Beach, Anaheim, Huntington Beach and the rest of Orange County, plus Pasadena, Long Beach, Torrance and the wider Los Angeles market. Both counties run their own plan-check queues and their own local design rules on top of state ADU law, which is why we keep permitting in-house rather than handing it to the homeowner.

Not on discretion. A conforming ADU is reviewed ministerially, with no hearing and no discretionary approval, and under Government Code section 66316 a local ordinance that conflicts with state ADU law is null and void until a compliant one is adopted. What a city can still do is issue plan-check corrections, and hillside, coastal or historic-district properties carry an extra review layer. Those are conditions to design around, not a veto.

We would rather show the numbers than promise there will be none. Real examples from our own jobs: 8,500 dollars to replace a first-floor subfloor and add crawl-space framing support once the floor was opened up; 5,100 dollars when an owner went from 31 switches to 65 during construction; 611 dollars to widen a 36-inch door to 42 inches. The large ones come from what was not investigated before the design was locked. The small ones come from decisions made after framing. We investigate early to keep the first category rare.