Its character is determined not just by the color and texture of the boulder itself but also by the detailing and proportions of the ramp. To experience the piece, you descend the ramp, you stand in the shadow of the rock and then you ascend. That trajectory is an architectural one; in fact, Heizer has been upfront that he takes cues in his work directly from architecture. — latimes.com

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) Board of Directors today approved LA-based Gruen Associates, in association with London's Grimshaw Architects, as the consultant team for the creation of a master plan for the historic Union Station and its surrounding 40 acres. Metro CEO Art Leahy was authorized by the board to execute a firm fixed price contract not to exceed $4,150,000. — bustler.net

Googie was used as a deragatory term almost from the start — born in Southern California and named for a West Hollywood coffee shop designed in 1949 by John Lautner, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. Architecture critic Douglas Haskell was the first to use “Googie” to describe the architectural movement, after driving by the West Hollywood coffee shop and finally feeling like he had found a name for this style that was flourishing in the postwar era. — blogs.smithsonianmag.com

The High Line in New York succeeds because it unites neighborhoods and gets people outside, building a community in a space that was planned to be demolished: it brought life from rehabilitation. As we all know, Los Angeles has many places that need rehabilitating and that could serve as a point of unification. The problem though is that unlike the High Line we don’t have an area that stretches between neighborhoods without feeling forced or unantural. — laimyours.com

Although as a preservation-minded fellow, he probably wouldn't suggest that the two-bedroom, one-bathroom house off Colorado Boulevard is a teardown: "Now is your chance to live in the cottage and oversee construction, or you can just move in, enjoy the charm, the seclusion, the views--and write that novel." — la.curbed.com

2x8:Taut showcased outstanding work from students from very diverse design backgrounds, "What is most impressive is to see the level of work from all these different schools." said 2x8 juror David Montalba, AIA - "You expect high caliber work from the more highly regarded schools, and you see that, but it's also great to see some of the smaller schools, like the Community Colleges, submit high level work." — aialosangeles.org

Beating out shortlisted competition including John Friedman Alice Kimm and Brooks+Scarpa, Italian firm Studio Fuksas has been awarded the commission to revamp the Beverly Center, the legendary (not to mention, ahem, aesthetically challenging) high end shopping mall in Beverly Hills. — blog.archpaper.com

I met this gray-haired woman. I lit her cigarette and she asked me what I was doing there? I said I just wanted to meet some architects and learn where I could go to school.

"She said, okay, 'If you have a car, tomorrow go to this place in Santa Monica called SciArc, it's a new school. Ask for Ray Kappe and tell them that Esther McCoy sent you.' — kcet.org

Behold the Subway Terminal Building, hidden in plain sight in the middle of downtown LA, where at one point during the 1940′s over 65,000 riders were shuffling down into the depths of Los Angeles to board a train which traveled beneath the busy streets. And, fittingly, it’s just a block from where you might board the Red Line subway today. — gelatobaby.com

Space International's renovation of Rudolph Schindler's Mackey Apartments is both pragmatic and sublime. Choosing to honor the existing architecture through contrast, the studio designed a cantilevered, 75-square metre counterpoint to the original building. An architecture report from Los Angeles by Mimi Zeiger — domusweb.it

The architect on the new gallery is the L.A.-based firm wHY Architecture, founded by Kulapat Yantrasast, who worked with Tadao Ando for 15 years, and designed the L.A. branch of New York gallery L&M Arts, in Venice Beach. The firm, Mr. Rubenstein says, was recommended to him by Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art director Jeffrey Deitch, a New York transplant himself. — galleristny.com

My business cards say FASHION ARCHITECTURE BASKETBALL. When people ask me what I do, they’re usually trying to ask how I made my money, not what my job is. In my mind, what I do is those three things. They occupy most of my time: fashion, going around to all the fashion weeks and being such a fanatic when I pick out my clothes, trying to be in the latest fashions. Architecture, which you can see here, with this house. And basketball, which is another full-time occupation for me. — interviewmagazine.com

Designed primarily by Roland Genick, chief architect for rail and transit systems at Parsons, the huge Pasadena-based construction conglomerate, the new stations are topped by undulating light-blue canopies of perforated metal panels that are not only dated — bringing a public-art project from the early 1990s to mind — but provide almost no shade or rain protection. Or solar power, for that matter, though from certain angles the stations look a bit like they're covered with photovoltaic panels. — latimes.com