On The Schedule: July, 2021

Thursday, July 8, 6pm

WhiteSpace: April Greiman Photography

Two years ago the pioneering digital designer April Greiman invited 25 women friends to write something -- “a haiku, a story, info with bullet points” -- related to the words, 'white space.'

Out of that has come a new book “WhiteSpace: April Greiman Photography,” interweaving her images of landscapes with meditations on lightness, emptiness, beauty, fear and “the space inbetween.”

WhiteSpace: April Greiman Photography, brings together 34 digital photographs and short writings by 25 women in design, art, architecture and poetry, on the abstract subject of whitespace. “WhiteSpace is like a trip to the desert with April and her wonderful colleagues. A master class in shadow and light,” writes Laurie Haycock Makela in the foreword.  

The contributors are: Lita Albuquerque, Frances Anderton, Jan Angevine, Marian Bantjes, Lyn Bradford, Judith Cahen Crouwel, Donatella Cusmá, Andrea Dietz, Tibbie Dunbar, Kristin Feireiss, Karin Fong, Carolien Glazenburg, Nikki Gonnissen, Jia Yi Gu, Karin Hibma, Gere Kavanaugh, Suzanne Lacy, Anette Lenz, Laurie Haycock Makela, Ilaria Mazzoleni, Jennifer Morla, Kali Nikitas, Louise Paradis, Paulette Singley, Elisabeth Workman

On Thursday, July 8, I’ll talk with April, her collaborator Laurie Haycock Makela and contributors about April’s choice to self-publish, the support of creative women colleagues and her lifelong preoccupation with color and light; April’s use of bold color and negative space, breaking boundaries in art, design, and architecture throughout her career.

Click here for details.

Thursday, July 15, 6 pm

Design Defines us All: Creating Community

In an age where online and parasocial relationships increasingly upstage human-to-human connection, the design of social spaces perhaps takes on greater urgency and complexity. How do you design a hotel lobby where people feel comfortable talking to strangers? Why are restaurant tables further apart in LA than in New York or London? What materials make for the perfect sound environment? 

Architect Mathew Chaney (Partner at EYRC; Design Architect, The Britely) and interior designer Tom Parker (Partner, Fettle) and I will discuss these and other questions about how design can affect human interaction -- when society’s concept of community is changing. It is hosted by The Britely social club at the Pendry, the newly opened hotel and condos on the Sunset Strip. The salon takes place Thursday at 6pm in the Piazza Garden.

Click here for details.

Wednesday, July 28, 8:00 - 9:30 pm

Connection Before Construction: How Destination Crenshaw Will Change Community Engagement

Destination Crenshaw is a 1.3-mile-long open-air museum and park currently under construction on Crenshaw Boulevard between Vernon and Slauson Avenues in Los Angeles's Crenshaw District. It is dedicated to preserving the history and culture of African Americans. 

The project is the lemons-to-lemonade response to the controversial decision by LA Metropolitan Transportation Authority to run part of the $2 billion-dollar Crenshaw/LAX light rail line at grade on Crenshaw Boulevard, bifurcating the most important commercial corridor in South LA, and removing more than 300 street parking spaces and 400 mature trees.

LA City Council Member Marqueece Harris-Dawson, members of the Crenshaw community, and a team of architects at Perkins & Will (including Zena Howard, above) led an intense community engagement process that has resulted in a culturally-stamped design that incorporates new sidewalks, street furniture (including seating, shade structures, bicycle racks), ten pocket parks, 800+ trees, and 100+ public art works and exhibits (including monuments, statues, murals, and digital stories).

At a Zoom gathering on Wednesday, July 28, two of the projects' leaders -- COO Jason Foster and architect Drake Dillard -- and the City of LA's Chief Design Officer, Christopher Hawthorne will talk about community engagement, how to do it effectively and how the experience with Destination Crenshaw may shape future development projects in the Southland.

Via Zoom. Click here for details.

 

Through July 30

Low Rise, Mid Rise, High Rise: Housing in LA Today

Low Rise, Mid Rise, High Rise: Housing in LA Today, a display of housing in the pipeline in Los Angeles, was intended to pop up for a short post-pandemic burst of 10 days in a showroom at Helms Design Center.

But the students at Cal Poly LA Metro, who designed the installation, and the architects who used time during the lockdown to make lovely, tangible models, put on such a great show that we kept it up through the end of July. 

The premise of the show is that housing in LA is spread in a patchwork of scales that has been shaped by zoning over the years: one storey structures in the vast areas of R1 or low-rise neighborhoods; midrise on arterial streets and near mass transit; high-rise in business districts. Each of those scales brings their own challenges, but also possibilities for experimention that builds on a century of innovation in residential design. 

Much of the housing in LA, especially at the mid-and high scale, is developer-driven, limited by codes and can be formulaic. But this show demonstrates that it does not have to be standard.

LRMRHR demonstrates some of the propositions for living well -- and sometimes affordably -- at every scale. It displays surprising housing concepts and visualizations, from gorgeous 3-D printed bas-reliefs, above, of the Reese Davidson Community by Eric Moss Owen, to custom ADUs from Byben and Design, Bitches. Then there is City Design Office's proposed tower of "stacked case study homes" at Grand Panorama above the Regional Connector, and The Alvidrez, a highrise supportive housing project to be built by Skid Row Housing Trust, designed by Michael Maltzan and named for Mike Alvidrez, the former head of SRHT. He is shown, with the model, below.

Visits are by appointment; I will be at the show Friday afternoons through July 30, and would love to see you then.

Click here for details.