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'His signature style helped bring Palm Springs to the international stage and his body of work is still as fresh today as when first created...' — The Desert Sun
Aptly nicknamed a "man of steel", Desert Modern-style architect Donald Wexler was known for his affordable sleek steel homes and was one of the principal figures who influenced Palm Springs' iconic modernist aesthetic that has increased in popularity in the last 15 years or so, attracting... View full entry
These are strange days in San Francisco, where the clamor to build needed housing — especially at affordable levels — is matched only by the self-righteous vigor with which actual proposals for that housing tend to be opposed...But if we want a well-planned city with distinctive new buildings for all its citizens, projects like this show that good design and good policy can go hand in hand. — San Francisco Chronicle
Developer Tishman Speyer's nearly one-year-old proposal for a 400-foot-tall residential tower, which Jeanne Gang designed, at 160 Folsom St. is suddenly facing opposition from local groups. With former mayor Art Agnos at the forefront of the opposition, the groups argue that the building promotes... View full entry
What would you do about the drought if you were Jerry Brown? A new 2-3 player board game by Bay Area-based graphic designer Alfred Twu allows you to play the politics of water in California.
Twu specializes in designing games that try and have fun with complex issues. Currently, he is developing one called “California Housing Crisis” that deals with San Francisco’s runaway housing costs, and he previously designed a fantasy map for a U.S. national high speed rail system that went viral.
— blogs.kcrw.com
Have an idea for how to address the drought with design? Submit your ideas to the Dry Futures competition! View full entry
MAD Architects is making their U.S. residential debut with the unveiling of 8600 Wilshire, which is scheduled to break ground along Wilshire Boulevard in the one and only Beverly Hills this October. Described by the architects like an oasis-like 'hillside village', the stark-white glass villas and... View full entry
The California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday that cities and counties may require developers to provide below-market-rate housing as a condition of a building permit.
The decision is expected to make it easier for Los Angeles and other cities with housing shortages to force developers to build or pay for affordable housing.
— LA Times
For decades, tourists have been coming to Southern California's Coachella Valley, drawn by spectacular mountain vistas, great weather and lush landscapes.
Those landscapes have been, for the most part, man-made — an artificial oasis in a land of desert. [...]
As California enters a fourth year of drought and state and local water officials unveil a series of conservation dictates, at least some hotels in the valley — big and small — have begun launching water conservation measures.
— USA Today
Have an idea for how to address the drought with design? Submit your ideas to the Dry Futures competition! View full entry
A diverse alliance of communities — including Los Angeles County's third-largest city — is fighting California's long-planned bullet train route into the heart of the San Fernando Valley, saying it would bring irreparable harm... The coalition of communities is demanding that only routes that are predominantly underground should be considered.
The growing resistance is coming in part from urban, working-class neighborhoods that are portraying the surface route as an environmental injustice.
— LA Times
In short, the bullet train faces opposition from basically every direction. One proposed route, which would include several above-ground stretches, worries residents of the town of San Fernando – because it would basically cleave the city in two, wiping out a significant chunk of the downtown... View full entry
Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today issued an executive order to establish a California greenhouse gas reduction target of 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 - the most aggressive benchmark enacted by any government in North America to reduce dangerous carbon emissions over the next decade and a half. "With this order, California sets a very high bar for itself and other states and nations, but it's one that must be reached - for this generation and generations to come," said Governor Brown. — gov.ca.gov
Currently in the midst of four consecutive years of exceptional drought, California is experiencing first-hand the real-life implications of a warming climate. Before the order, the state was already on track to "meet or exceed" targets for reducing CO2 emissions to pre-1990 levels in the next... View full entry
This project [titled 'Projection'], announced last October, is probably the first time in a long time that the old inn (aka the Sunset Pacific) has gotten so much attention. The Bates—whose nickname is as much a callback to 'Psycho' as it is to the motel's location near the intersection of Bates and Sunset—has been vacant for decades, except for the squatters and the occasional, totally fun-looking, likely illegal party — la.curbed.com
Artist Vincent Lamouroux went all out in covering Silver Lake's Bates Motel in stark white limewash for his piece titled, Projection, which officially opens on April 26. As of now, the derelict landmark will eventually be razed to make room for three mixed-users. View full entry
South of San Francisco, a whole town is being deformed by plate tectonics. [...]
This is Hollister, California, a town being broken in two slowly, relentlessly, and in real time by an effect known as “fault creep.” A surreal tide of deformation has appeared throughout the city.
As if its grid of streets and single-family homes was actually built on an ice floe, the entire west half of Hollister is moving north along the Calaveras Fault, leaving its eastern streets behind.
— bldgblog.blogspot.com
Breadtruck Films captures a glimpse of The Northparker's impact in the booming Northpark neighborhood of San Diego in the nearly 6.5-minute film, "The Northparker". Designed by architect/developer Jonathan Segal, the monolithic mixed-use structure has 27 stylish residential units tucked inside in... View full entry
For every barrel of oil Chevron produces in its Kern River oil field, another 10 barrels of salty wastewater come up with it. So Chevron is selling about 500,000 barrels of water per day...back to...the local water district that delivers water to farmers within a seven-mile slice of Kern County...But it’s a risky dance; over time, high sodium can change the properties of the soil, making it impermeable, unable to take in any more water...Eventually, the soil becomes barren. — Newsweek
Have an idea for how to address the drought with design? Submit your ideas to the Dry Futures competition! View full entry
California Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday imposed mandatory water restrictions for the first time on residents, businesses and farms, ordering cities and towns in the drought-ravaged state to reduce usage by 25%... [amounting] to roughly 1.5 million acre-feet of water (an acre-foot of water equals about 325,000 gallons) over the next nine months... "We're in a new era," Brown said. "The idea of your nice little green grass getting lots of water every day, that's going to be a thing of the past." — CNN
Brown's executive order will also mandate:Require agriculture to report more on their water usage so as to better "enforce against illegal diversions and waste"A ban on watering lawns on public street mediansSignificant cuts in water use for large landscapes like universities, golf courses, and... View full entry
The Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive recently revealed details to their inaugural exhibition and other fun-sounding programs as they prepare to move into their new downtown Berkeley location at Oxford and Center Streets, across the University of California, Berkeley campus. The new museum... View full entry
This publication documents an exhibition-oriented initiative that prompts artists and architects to develop installations highlighting Rudolph M. Schindler’s domestic experiment...Visitors often ask detailed questions. They are curious about Schindler’s thought process when designing and constructing the house; how the house has been used, understood, and canonized throughout the decades; and how the house is holding up today. — Schindler Lab
For years, the Schindler House in West Hollywood has served as a cultural backdrop for a multitude of MAK Center exhibitions that have -- in turn -- continuously reinvented the experience of the house and also uniquely demonstrate the ongoing need to preserve the house. Whether engaging with the... View full entry