Design studio Project Room has been announced as the winner of the competition to design and create a new standard streetlight for Los Angeles. Initiated by the City of L.A. and led by the Mayor's Office with the Bureau of Street Lighting, the competition asked designers to create a lighting system that would incorporate new technology, include space for text on each pole, and provide shade to help ease the impacts of the climate crisis.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
The most arresting image, among many, in the documentary Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time, directed by Alison Ellwood, is a black-and-white photograph of Eric Clapton visiting Los Angeles for the first time on tour with Cream. He sits a few feet from Joni Mitchell, who is playing guitar, with a visibly stoned David Crosby in the background on the backyard lawn of Cass Elliot’s house. Clapton observes Mitchell with such a smoldering intensity you think he’s going to blow an amp. He is transfixed by Mitchell not because she was striking—and she was—but because of her musicianship.
HED and Moore Ruble Yudell's new Santa Monica High School Discovery Building is currently under construction. Working with contractor McCarthy, the project is designed to embrace Open Building principles for a better K12 education experience. Made to prepare students for a dynamic future amongst social, cultural and pedagogical change, the 1,200-student facility supports different modes of learning for Santa Monica High School - locally known as Samohi.
Architectural practice Hawkins\Brown has designed a new mixed-use tower development for Hollywood. The project combines 117,000 square feet of office and retail space for the area's growing media and creative community. As the design team outlines, the proposed project was made to address a growing demand for creative offices in Hollywood, where an influx of entertainment and technology firms are seeking Class-A space in a tight market.
The Chet Holifield Federal Building in Laguna Niguel, California—better known to locals as the “Ziggurat” for obvious reasons—is reportedly at risk of demolition. The six-story, one-million-square-foot government services building is on the chopping block as the U.S. Public Buildings Reform Board, responsible for unloading federal facilities, will likely sell the structure as early as next year.
Construction technology company Mighty Buildings has completed a new 3D-printed Accessory Dwelling Unit in San Diego, California. The company recently launched with the aim of using 3D printing and robotic automation to build more affordable and sustainable homes. Their pilot project, the Mighty Duo B, comprises two modular units that took eight total weeks from fabrication to assembly on site.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
In March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic shifted our university—the University of California, Berkeley—totally online, along with the whole of education from childcare up across the country and most of the planet. In the wake of this forced and unprecedented experiment, debates about what it means remain ongoing. Will the episodic dream of a placeless university, or at minimum a hybrid place/placeless one, come true? Millennia of experience argue for giving higher education a local, physical anchor. And most universities and colleges have this anchor as their starting place, even as they consider what their ongoing experience with virtual teaching, research, and administration means.
The COVID-19 pandemic quickly shuttered the doors of businesses, schools and workplaces across the world. From telecommuting to virtual events, cities have experienced less noise, traffic and pollution. Filmmaker and Director Jeff Durkin of Breadtruck Films recently began to capture these quiet moments on the University of California San Diego campus. Taking inspirations from science fiction series Tales from the Loop, he set out with his children to explore over 100 acres of modern architecture.
The 14th Annual San Francisco Design Week (SFDW) is returning this year as a virtual design festival. The all-online program kicks off June 15-25 with the theme “Intentional Distortions." Over 150 participating Bay Area and West Coast design firms are joining the event with original ideas and creative solutions to help businesses survive in a post-pandemic world.
OMA / Jason Long and Y.A. Studio have been selected to design an 150 unit affordable housing project in San Francisco's historic Haight Ashbury neighborhood. Dubbed 730 Stanyan, the project aims to provide a high-quality living environment for families and seniors. The housing will be situated at the entry to Golden Gate Park and aspires to address the city’s desperate need for permanent housing options.
Grimshaw has just revealed initial concepts of the new 21,000 square-foot arts complex for Santa Monica College (SMC) in Santa Monica, California. Scheduled for completion in 2024, the building is planned as a “factory of creativity”, replacing an existing surface car park and serving as a new western gateway for the college.
Pre-leasing for the 31-story high rise residential tower ARQ is set to begin in West Los Angeles. Designed as part of the Cumulus District development, the project is sited between Culver City and West Adams. In creating ARQ, architecture firm Solomon Cordwell Buenz and interior design firm Rodrigo Vargas Design created units with panoramic views of Los Angeles spanning from the Pacific Ocean to Downtown.
The Miller Hull Partnership has earned a Living Building Challenge Petal Certification for the renovation of its San Diego studio. The renovation is the first project certified under the fourth version of the Living Building Challenge (LBC 4.0), which continues the standard’s mission of visionary building goals. Now all of Miller Hull’s offices are Petal certified.
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) has just announced the groundbreaking of Platform 16, an office campus in Downtown San Jose, California. Comprising three-buildings, the 1,200,000-square-foot project is an innovative complex that favors indoor and outdoor connections.
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Firm Studio One Eleven has unveiled a series of new community centers across the Orange County Great Park masterplan. Located in four of the 10 neighborhoods in the 1,300-acre park, they join one of the largest urban masterplans in the United States. The centers were made to combine a range of amenities and programs through seamless indoor-outdoor rooms and plazas.
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Design and the City is a podcast by reSITE, raising questions and proposing solutions for the city of the future. In the seventh episode, Christopher Cabaldon, the longest-serving mayor in West Sacramento’s history, an LGBTQ+advocate, talks about the urban regeneration of his city, from a former industrial town to an urbanized, livable community.
Grimshaw and Little Diversified Architectural Consulting (Little) have been selected to design a new Arts Complex for Santa Monica College (SMC) in California. Aiming to create an iconic landmark building along Pico Boulevard, the complex will be made to celebrate the college's Art Department as part of the broader Santa Monica community.
Space Saloon and Designers on Holiday have announced DeSaturated, a week-long interdisciplinary community-in-residence design festival in California's Cuyama Valley. Following the success of the first two iterations, LANDING and FIELDWORKS, the team is returning to California once more. The community-in-residence program will bring together designers, artists and researchers to address issues of water scarcity.
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