Design and Architecture

<p>Los Angeles has tunnel vision. <em>DnA</em> tours the Downtown Regional Connector, as Elon Musk digs his own tunnel. United Airlines flies its last Boeing 747 flight. DnA meets nostalgic pilots and hears about what's coming next for airline passengers. Plus, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA is not over. <em>DnA</em> takes a road trip to see three desert shows.</p>

<p>The five-story Lincoln Heights Jail opened in 1931 and has housed everyone from Al Capone to people arrested during the Zoot Suit Riots and the Watts Riots. It was finally decommissioned in 1965, but its long and sordid story is about to get a new chapter, with a planned redevelopment that will turn it into a bustling residential and commercial destination.</p>

<p>The prototypes for the new US-Mexican border wall are now built, but will President Trump's dream of a big, beautiful wall materialize? Or will it be just a beautiful patch? Architect Renzo Piano takes a cinematic approach to designing the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. And as cities change, so too do their cemeteries, with suburban lawns giving way to tall and dense mausoleums.</p>

<p>Everyone's excited about the Dodgers once again being in the World Series. But the Dodgers may have never left Brooklyn 60 years ago if it wasn't for a deal hatched between city officials and a real estate businessman to turn Chavez Ravine into a baseball field.</p>

<p>As the World Series kicks off at Dodger Stadium, we'll look at how the construction of the stadium at Chavez Ravine symbolized the birth of modern Los Angeles. And we meet the two women architects behind the firm "Design, Bitches." They’re currently converting the Highland Park Masonic Temple into a buzz-worthy events space.</p>

<p>Thursday is the deadline for cities near and far to submit bids to internet superstore Amazon for its second global headquarters. Amazon says its new HQ2 will be an economic engine for any city, generating around 50,000 jobs. That has cities in Southern California, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Irvine and Santa Ana licking their chops and offering up incentives in an effort to score the headquarters.</p>

<p>The deadline is this week for cities to bid to host Amazon's second headquarters, or HQ2. What can Seattle teach those cities about becoming Amazon's company town? And the late landscape architect Lawrence Halprin saw gardens through the lens of dance. Los Angeles right now is paying tribute to the visionary designer of modernist parks and plazas.</p>

<p>It's now up to the full, LA City Council to decide whether or not to add an additional fee on developers looking to build in the city. It's being called a “linkage fee” and the hope is that it will bring in as much as $90 million a year to help build more affordable housing. A council committee signed off on the idea this week.</p>

<p>You might think Hollywood and the NRA are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. But recent mass shootings have brought renewed focus to the glamorization of guns in the movies. And a music festival in Joshua Tree this weekend takes place in a setting known for its spiritual qualities as well as its architecture. We hear about the Institute of Mentalphysics.</p>

<p>Traffic in Southern California keeps getting worse. Elected officials have commissioned new light rail lines, additional bike paths, and have even added more freeway lanes. There’s also another concept they’re playing with: road diets. One community is fighting back.</p>

<p>Can designers of public space and event planners avert mass shootings, like the one that occurred Sunday night in Las Vegas? Pro-housing YIMBY activist Sonja Trauss runs for political office in San Francisco. And the long-planned Academy Museum comes into focus, with a Renzo Piano-designed sphere.</p>

<p>It's been a long time coming, and riddled with enough drama to fill a Hollywood movie. But today, the still-under construction Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Museum opened its doors for a close-up.</p>

<p><em>DnA</em> goes to check out CAFAM’s timely show of art and architecture, <em>The U.S.-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility</em> -- and on the way encounters the installation of LA’s pilot "smart node." Will the streetlight of the future contain cameras, charging stations, speakers and sensors to detect gunshots? And we meet the homeless artist whose Los Angeles studio was a freeway on-ramp, until he was moved on.</p>

<p>Apple has rebranded its stores as "town squares;" a vending machine startup called Bodega caused outrage; cities are lining up to woo Amazon's HQ2. <em>DnA</em> looks at tech's impact on cities. Plus, artist Stacy Michelson (creator of KCRW's Good Food tote bag and picnic blanket) tells us how Japanese snack food packaging inspired her goofy illustrations.</p>

<p>As Apple marks the iPhone's ten year anniversary with the launch of the iPhone X, thousands of people in hurricane-struck areas cannot make a phone call. And Amazon seeks a bride: North American cities are a-courting to house the tech behemoth's HQ2. Plus, LACMA's <em>Found In Translation</em> explores decades of cross-pollination in art and design between California and Mexico.</p>

<p>Four crosswalks in front of the Broad in downtown Los Angeles got a colorful paint job this weekend. Local high school students helped paint intersecting diagonal stripes in a design created by 94-year-old Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. The Broad invited him to re-imagine the crosswalks as part of the city-wide Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA.</p>

<p>Billionaire philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen has likened his planned research center in the Santa Monica Mountains to a secular monastery. Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron is designing it. What is the Berggruen Institute, and will the building please the neighbors? And in <i>Condemned to Be Modern</i> at LA Municipal Art Gallery, artists from Cuba, Brazil and Mexico examine the legacy of modernism.</p>

<p>A downtown Los Angeles landmark returns this week. Starting Thursday, you'll once again be able to ride Angels Flight from Grand Central Market to the top of Bunker Hill and back. The newly-upgraded train has been dark for four years, following a series of derailments and other issues.</p>

<p>The City of Los Angeles is trying to slow drivers down. We get perspectives on a road diet that caused road rage in Playa del Rey. And Tropical Storm Harvey is devastating Southeast Texas. While it is the region's worst storm, it is not the first. Has Houston's approach to design and planning made it susceptible to flooding?</p>

<p>Los Angeles is hoping to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, and is using its investment in a regional mass transit system as a selling point. How does the experience of riding on LA's subway compare to London, host of the 2012 games, and New York, which has never hosted the games? And what can LA learn from those two cities?</p>

<p>Everyone is Californian now, says the co-curator of <em>California: Designing Freedom</em>, a show on display in London. We look at how West Coast design dominates the world. And as cities around the country remove Confederate statues, there's a debate over whether they should be torn down in the name of today's social values, or maintained as teachable moments.</p>

<p class="p1">Developers have big plans to make over older waterfronts in San Pedro, San Diego and Santa Barbara. It’s the next step in the urbanization of these cities. Old world-style fishing villages are out. In are coming designers Bjarke Ingels, James Corner and bigger commercial attractions. Their designs vary and so does public response. How will they affect the character and life of these coastal destinations?</p>

<p>From the drug-fueled 1960s style of the hippies to the tech-utopian visions of Silicon Valley's founders, California's design sensibilities have had a global reach. The exhibition <em>California: Designing Freedom</em> at the Design Museum in London looks at how the Golden State came to have such a powerful influence on contemporary design.</p>

<p>A Syrian boy hand-built a model of what his hometown might look like after the country's civil war, and now <em>Future Aleppo</em> is on display in Los Angeles. Also, do you think driverless cars are a new idea? Just wait 'til you hear about Norman Bel Geddes, an industrial designer decades ahead of his time.</p>

<p>The Los Angeles-based painter David Hockney turned 80 last month and his birthday is being marked with shows from London to LA's Getty Museum. Critics and Hockney talk to <em>DnA</em> about his enduring appeal. And the movie <em>Columbus</em> is set in the small town of Columbus, Ind., a mecca of modernist architecture. The filmmaker, Kogonada, explains why he placed buildings at the center of his directorial debut.</p>

<p>Home prices keep hitting record highs in Southern California. What’s the solution? Some say Santa Monica – with its recent downtown development and light rail extension – is the model. But a split vote by that city’s lawmakers suggests otherwise.</p>

<p>Pack your bags, we're off to summer camp! But forget lanyards and campfire singalongs. We visit a boutique camp for teen designers. Los Angeles architects take "The Architectural Imagination" to Detroit. Do their dreams offer more hope than grassroots solutions? Louis Kahn's floating concert hall has sent up an SOS. Can a Hudson Valley town save it from the scrapyard?</p>

<p>President Trump's border wall project appears to have ground to a halt. Will it ever materialize? And David Adjaye, the designer of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, reflects on the museum's significance, emerging African architecture, and improving social housing.</p>

<p>In the past year, residents of both the city and county of Los Angeles voted to tax themselves to pay for more housing for the homeless, and for the services needed to keep them in those homes. Local elected officials say those extra dollars couldn't come at a better time. Homelessness is up 23 percent in LA when compared to last year. So what's being built right now, and what's coming down the line?</p>

<p>Los Angeles-based electric bus manufacturing companies aim to meet a growing demand for emission-free urban transit. And it's one thing to design a building, but it's another thing to build it. We pay tribute to the late Paul Matt, the construction giant who realized many Southern California landmarks.</p>

<p>For Swedish automaker Volvo, the combustible engine in a thing of the past. Beginning in 2019 all of the new car models it introduces will be fully electric or hybrids. It's the first major traditional automaker to set a concrete date for phasing out combustion-engine-only models. The trend, however, isn't limited to just car companies. There is a boom in electric bus manufacturers in the U.S. as well, including right here in Southern California.</p>

<p>The Fourth of July holiday is a great time to crank up the music and hit the beach. Henry Rollins likes his punk played on a perfect sound system, which he shows us on a tour of his home. And we hear about the enduring tradition of innovative surf design in Santa Barbara. We also mark Independence Day with a look at the new Freedom Sculpture in Century City. Designed by engineer-artist Cecil Balmond, it draws inspiration from the ancient Persian king Cyrus.</p>

<p>Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has been ousted from the company he created. Was this the best way to address the negatives of a highly creative entrepreneur? "Serial entrepreneur" Z Holly and another controversial business leader -- American Apparel's Dov Charney - weigh in.</p>

<p>The tallest building west of the Mississippi River will officially open for business on Friday. The Wilshire Grand Center has been years in the making. It rises 73 stories, or 1,100 feet with its spire at the top, and includes a near-900 room InterContinental Hotel. And its architecture tells the story of a changing Los Angeles.</p>

<p>London's Grenfell Tower fire shows what can go wrong when a high rise building is not designed or retrofitted in accordance with fire and safety needs. Are artists the victims or perpetrators of gentrification? A downtown luxury apartment building will have an "artist-in-residence." Plus, the new private animal shelter PetSpace offers a high-design venue for adopting your new four-legged friend.</p>

<p>Celebrated architect Frank Lloyd Wright was born 150 years ago last week, and the anniversary has been recognized with events and exhibitions. His style of “organic architecture" can be seen in his Los Angeles houses, including the Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Park. Why does this architect still tower in the public imagination?</p>

<p>The Trump Organization plans a new hotel chain called American Idea, inspired by the family's experiences on the campaign trail. So how do they brand "American Idea" and steer clear of perceived conflicts? And, LACMA is planning a move into South LA. Find out how it connects to its proposed makeover of Miracle Mile. Meanwhile, Latin American artists at LACMA take on the idea of home -- and find it has emotional and political meaning.</p>

<p>LACMA wants to turn a defunct MTA facility in South LA into a new space for exhibitions, educational programming and art storage. What would this mean for the neighboring community, and for LACMA's other major project: to renovate its main campus on Wilshire Boulevard?</p>

<p>Vehicles are increasingly being used as weapons, as seen in the London Bridge attack over the weekend and in New York’s Times Square last month. The Compton-based company Calpipe is designing security bollards to help make public spaces safer. And novelist Kevin Kwan satirizes the “crazy rich” Asian jet set and their luxurious tastes in his latest book, “Rich People Problems.”</p>

<p>Driverless cars are being touted as the future of mobility. But we’re seeing some bumps in the road. A high-profile arrangement between the city of Pittsburgh and the ride hailing company Uber to test their autonomous vehicles appears to have fallen apart. What does this mean for driverless cars in LA and elsewhere?</p>

<p>Angelenos don't want more freeways but we seem not to want mass transit either. Metro has killed the 710 freeway extension, and bus and train ridership is down across the region. What's the future of getting around in LA? And, Peter Shire is having a comeback. What attracts a new generation to his playful ceramics and furniture? </p>

<p>Ridership on LA Metro buses continues to decline across Los Angeles. Passengers say the service needs improvement. Metro now wants to overhaul the system's 170 lines and 15,000 stops, and is conducting a study due out in April, 2019. How are other cities dealing with this issue?</p>

<p>What's one mile around, has a four-story glass door, and looks like a spaceship? <em>DnA</em> gets a tour of Apple's new headquarters in Cupertino. And we learn about Los Angeles' creative economy, and why LA is a hotbed for manufacturing.</p>

<p>An LA city councilman wants companies who want to do business with LA to disclose if they're also working on the US-Mexico border wall. Forget old-school bar graphs and pie charts -- depicting data has become an art form. And another private art museum opens soon in Los Angeles, but this one takes you into the fascinating world of freemasonry.</p>

<p>Uber moves into the Times Mirror Square complex in downtown LA. Preservationists want Frank Gehry to incorporated a mid-century bank into his mixed-use project on Sunset. And Hulu's <em>The Handmaid's Tale</em> uses color and costume to make a dystopian story visually stunning.</p>

<p>South LA's "Gangsta Gardener" has won out. Ron Finley, a community gardener and activist for healthy food in underserved neighborhoods, has managed to overcome a threat of eviction after successfully buying his property from an Agoura Hills developer.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Vespertine fuses taste, sight, sound, smell and touch in a novel eating experience coming to Culver City. We'll hear from chef Jordan Kahn and architect Eric Owen Moss. Bill Hanway updates us on LA's 2024 Olympic bid, on the eve of a visit from the International Olympic Committee. And former first lady Michelle Obama tells architects why they matter.</p>

<p>Paul Revere Williams was a trailblazing African-American architect in Los Angeles. This week the American Institute of Architects is set to honor him with a posthumous Gold Medal for lifetime achievement.</p>

<p>Pioneering architect Richard Neutra's Silver Lake home has been added to the list of national historic landmarks, with an assist from Rep. Adam Schiff. Thom Mayne's new house in Cheviot Hills replaces the former home of writer Ray Bradbury, and the neighbors like it! Paul Revere Williams posthumously gets AIA's top prize, and I.M. Pei turns 100.</p>

<p>This Saturday, Los Angeles State Historic Park will celebrate its newly-renovated green space with a party that's been 16 years in the making.</p>