[...] unique to this event was a student design contest among the top seven schools of architecture in Los Angeles. Teams of three students from each school participated in a three-day competition in February to design a Continuing Care Retirement Community that will promote social interaction and community on the MLK Medical Center Campus in the South Los Angeles community of Willowbrook. — bustler.net

A squadron of U-Hauls descended on the parking lot in front of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA last weekend, setting up a pop-up architecture exhibition in the first in a series of events called On the Road. The U-Hauls served as temporary displays for the work of up-and-coming, experimental architecture practices here in Los Angeles--where architecture businesses are known for being experimental, even if they don't often get a chance to deploy those innovations in Los Angeles. — la.curbed.com

At a festive ceremony yesterday afternoon, the Los Angeles Business Council unveiled the winners of its 2013 Los Angeles Architectural Awards. The program recognizes buildings from throughout the region for their excellence in design, commitment to sustainability and impact on the community.

Architectural icon and SCI-Arc founder Ray Kappe was honored with the L.A. Architectural Lifetime Achievement Award. — bustler.net

"Bracingly forward-looking, Zumthor's design for LACMA would give the city a much-needed jolt of architectural energy." — Los Angeles Times

With his fellow Pritzker Prize-winning L.A. architect, Thom Mayne, playing the self-described role of “ombudsman” and “facilitator,” Frank Gehry is back in the fold for a major exhibition on Los Angeles architects that will open June 16 at the Museum of Contemporary Art. — latimes.com

Frank Gehry has raised concerns that concerts at his Disney Hall in Los Angeles could be ruined by a planned subway line that would run close to the venue.

Recent simulations suggest rumbling might be audible in the concert hall.

These have provoked the architect to call for the Metro’s own noise projections, which two years ago predicted there would be no audible impact, to be reviewed. — bdonline.co.uk

The exhibition at the MAK Center in West Hollywood, curated by UCLA architectural historian and critic Sylvia Lavin, is a wry study of the ways Los Angeles artists and architects worked with, leaned on, stole from and influenced one another in the 1970s.

In a larger sense, it charts the way Southern California architects threw off the influence of establishmen Modernism and helped remake the profession in that decade. — latimes.com

Though indebted to conventional artistic methodologies, the vibrant, playful works of Jorge Prado lack traditional notions of artistic autonomy, with multiple uses straddling sculpture, furniture and architecture. Over espresso and a cigarette in the kitchen of his Los Angeles home, Pardo shares with Oscar Tuazon his processes of transforming built environments into functionally fluid sites designed to facilitate a diversity of experience. — youtube.com

In Venice, Sandmeier wanted to tell the story of a whole neighborhood, not just emphasize the architectural merits of any one structure, and in doing so build a history of architects and artists working together. "Buildings are important for different reasons. Sometimes it's the architecture, sometimes it is the history, and sometimes it is the context," she explains. "Venice is a place with such rich cultural context that underlies the whole community, there is a lot to talk about." — kcet.org

The decision to go with “edible art” as part of a larger park renovation, rather than a standard mural, was seen as a way to foster residents’ participation, said Karly Katona, a deputy to Mark Ridley-Thomas, the local county supervisor. — NYT

While high-speed rail remains an uncertain prospect in California, it is the centerpiece of four design concepts unveiled Wednesday for modernizing Union Station.

Architects commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to upgrade the 77-year-old transit hub in downtown Los Angeles showed preliminary plans that put a high-speed rail system atop, beneath or alongside existing subways without compromising the character of the historic landmark. — LA Daily News

The exhibition was planned as an exploration of the last 25 years of Los Angeles architecture, with work by Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Michael Maltzan, Barbara Bestor and many younger architects.

It was funded in part by a Getty Foundation grant of $445,000. No other single show in the PSTP series received a grant as large, according to a Getty press release. A 272-page catalog, co-published by Rizzoli, is already complete. — latimes.com

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, an acclaimed Swiss architect is hoping to pull off what an acclaimed Dutch one could not.

Next month LACMA will publicly unveil a $650-million plan by Pritzker Prize winner Peter Zumthor for a dramatic new museum building along Wilshire Boulevard. — latimes.com

Italian architect Renzo Piano, Los Angeles architect Zoltan Pali and officials from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled preliminary designs Thursday for a $300-million film museum at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue.

The architectural centerpiece of the 290,000-square-foot complex, just west of the campus of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, would be a giant glass-enclosed dome, which Piano refers to as the "sphere" and the "soap bubble." — latimes.com

This exhibition charts L.A.’s rapid transformation into one of the globe’s most influential industrial, economic and creative capitals. From its ambitious freeway network and sleek coffee shops, to its dynamic cultural destinations and experimental residences, the vast metropolis’s rich yet often underappreciated built environment is reexamined, promising new insight into the region’s development and impact as a vibrant laboratory for cutting-edge design. — pacificstandardtimepresents.org