What To Do In November > Some Amazing Events

If the fact that we're taking the month of November off is leaving a giant, gaping hole in your architecture and design calendar, have no fear. There are some great events coming up this month organized and hosted by Friends of de LaB we'd like to alert you to:

• Our October de LaB hosts at Intelligentsia are planning a very special night at their Pasadena location on Friday, November 19th. The good people at our favorite coffee bar are hosting an 8-course tasting menu dinner paired with coffee from progressive farm Finca Santuario. The food will be prepared by Heirloom LA’s Matthew Poley with wine by Matthew Kaner of Bar Covel. More details over here. 
• Another previous de LaB host, our friends at Neutra's VDL Research House II are planning a site-specific installation by Mexico City-based artist Santiago Borja. The artist, with a team of expert weavers from Chiapas, Mexico will stage an architectural intervention, turning the house into a temporary functional textile loom. The exhibition opens Nov 17th and runs until Dec 22nd. More info on Borja and the project here.
• Have we mentioned we love pie? And the good people at Machine Project? Two great tastes that taste great together! Hammer designer Julia Luke and baker/For Your Art wonder woman Sarah Williams are hosting a pop-up pie shop at Machine Project on Nov 18th from 7-10pm. The two are hosting a complementary tasting and are selling DIY "pie kits" featuring featuring a jar of home made filling in one of 3 seasonal filling flavors. Even better, all proceeds will be donated to the LA Food Bank.

Skid Row's Socially Conscious Architect: Talk and Tour With Michael Maltzan > Dec 4th > ICA Campus, Downtown*

*UPDATE: We are now at capacity but accepting RSVPs for our wait list. If you'd like to be added please email us at hello[at]designeastoflabrea[dot]org. Thanks!

Yes, we're taking a short break in November for turkey and travel but are pleased to announce our December event: a very special lecture and tour with architect Michael Maltzan on how he is working to transform some of downtown's most distressed areas.  According to the NY Times:

...Mr. Maltzan may be the only American architect of his stature with significant experience in a far less glamorous field: providing shelter and other accommodations for his city’s poor. Over the past 16 years he has worked on several housing projects for the homeless and an arts complex for underprivileged children that are remarkable for their architectural sophistication and their spirit of public service.

On Dec 4th, join us for a talk with Michael about his projects on Skid Row, including the Rainbow and Carver apartments commissioned by Skid Row Housing Trust and the Inner City Arts campus. We'll be meeting at ICA and following Michael's lecture in the library, we'll be going on a tour of campus.

The lecture is free, but in the spirit of the season and event, we ask that attendees bring a donation of art supplies. What to bring? You can check ICA's list of needed items here.

11am Meet in the library
11:30 am Lecture begins promptly
12n Tour of the campus with project architects from Michael Maltzan Architecture


Inner City Arts
720 Kohler St, Los Angeles, CA 90021-1518 () ‎

inner-cityarts.org

We'll likely head over to Yxta Cocina Mexicana afterwards for lunch/drinks.

Given the space constraints of the campus, we have to limit the number of attendees. RSVP's are on a first come, first served basis. You must email us to confirm your spot at hello[at]designeastoflabrea.org. (Sorry, Facebook rsvp's won't count for this one).

Please DO NOT call Inner-City Arts directly.

And don't forget this Thursday's event at the Pasadena Museum of California Art and Intelligentsia. See you there!

October 9-17 > Design Week LA

de LaB is thrilled to be a supporting sponsor of the inaugural Design Week Los Angeles, a week-long, city-wide celebration of design with events being held by organizations across LA from October 9-17. Check out the lineup of over 50 events from a celebration of Julius Shulman's birthday to Forty Years of Sesame Street Illustration: Selections from the Publishing Archive of Sesame Workshop. During that week you can even get free admission to the California Design Biennial at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. (And then you can come back to the exhibition on October 28 for our October de LaB event!)


One event taking place during Design Week LA we'd particularly like to turn your attention to is CicLAvia, which we hosted at our Moving Beyond Cars event and advertised during Park[ing] Day. CicLAvia will turn 7.5 miles of LA roads into car-free routes on Sunday, October 10 (that's 10/10/10). So grab your bike, tell your friends, and hit the streets to prove to local leaders that CicLAvia should be a regular LA event! Then we'll see you at our October event at the California Design Biennial on Thursday, October 28.

October 28 > California Design Biennial Panel: Pro Bono Design > Pasadena

Giving It All Away: The Pros and Cons of Pro Bono Design

Designers want to use their creative skills to help a cause they believe in. But how to know where to donate your time in a way that's meaningful for you and the cause you want to aid? In discussing their work featured in the 2010 California Design Biennial, the designers behind 826's Time Travel Mart and the utilitarian urban living products Abject Object will discuss the importance of choosing a local nonprofit and working closely with its constituents over a long period of time. The designers will show how co-creating with the groups they're serving, whether its elementary kids who need after school tutoring or women living at a downtown shelter, helped them to design intelligent, engaging products that have gained widespread attention, enriched the lives of the nonprofit's stakeholders, and changed the course of their design careers.

Speakers:
Stefan Bucher, 344 Design
Kim Karlsrud & Jenny Liang, Project H Design
Moderated by Alissa Walker, curator of product design for the 2010 California Design Biennial

Thursday, October 28
5:00-5:30pm Viewing of California Design Biennial in main gallery (you can also arrive earlier during museum hours to see the show)
5:30-7:00pm Panel discussion in rooftop gallery

Free with admission to the museum
$7 for Adults
$5 Seniors and Students
Free for PMCA Members
Pay the fee at the museum

RSVP to hello@designeastoflabrea.org

Pasadena Museum of California Art
490 East Union Street
Pasadena, CA 91101
626-568-3665

Afterwards, we'll lead a walk to Intelligentsia Pasadena for refreshments and a tour of the space by its architects, Ana Henton and Gregory Williams, MASS.

7:30pm Gather at Intelligentsia, coffee and snacks
8:00pm Tour and talk by MASS, more coffee and snacks

Intelligentsia Pasadena
55 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91105

No need to RSVP if you're just coming to Intelligentsia. We'll have the space in the back. They close at 10pm.


See you there!

September Recap: Park[ing] Day at LOCAL!

There's nothing quite like lounging along Sunset Boulevard for the day! On this year's Park[ing] Day we once again took over a parking space in front of our favorite neighborhood restaurant LOCAL, converting it into a public park for a day.

Our original plans for a performance space were thwarted by an architect stuck in jury duty but our friends at Ball-Nogues pulled through by supplying tables from their recent Table Cloth installation that just came down at UCLA. Rounded out with some greenery, the space was a perfect place for those who wanted to take their lunch or latte in a temporary park.

Tons of de Labbers stopped by to sample LOCAL's delish (and local) cuisine, bringing their dogs, children and bikes to help us populate the space. Everyone at LOCAL was so gracious and helpful and offered free water to anyone (human or canine) who came by—a godsend for all the bikers out there hopping from park to park. Also, we loved the free wifi!

In fact, our park was so popular, we were also featured in stories about Park[ing] Day on GOOD and LAist. Thanks to Lindsay William-Ross at LAist for coming by and snapping some awesome shots, including this one above!

We also used our park to help raise awareness for CicLAvia, which will convert 7.5 miles of LA streets into car-free routes for biking, skating, walking and strolling on October 10 (10/10/10). CicLAvia is part of LA's Design Week, and de LaB is honored to be a supporting partner for this exciting new event for LA. More on that soon!

August Recap: Moving Beyond Cars and Vertical Veggies

August was packed with two, yes, two de LaB events! Our first event, Moving Beyond Cars, was held in partnership with GOOD, railLA, the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, the Coalition for Clean Air. We took over the LA Beyond Cars exhibition in the Jewel Box at City National Plaza for a night of conversations about alternative transit in LA. As people compared stories on how they got there, and drew their routes and forms of transit on a large map of LA, the incredible James Rojas lead several of his urban planning workshops, asking people to build their ideal "beyond car" LA using found objects. Metro even gave us some awesome public transit temporary tattoos, which guests applied at the door.

We also would like to acknowledge three people who came to the event in unique ways. The grand prize went to Justin Bensan, who not only documented his multi-modal trip from Long Beach on Twitter, he also made a stop on the Blue Line to enjoy Watts Towers on the way up to LA. We love that! Our second award went to the most creative form of transit, a Pon-e Tribred, designed by Charlie Becker of the Silver Lake LA Trikke Shop. And third place went to a woman who left before we could get her name, but she very enthusiastically told us that she walked five blocks, took the 475 bus, then the Gold Line, Red Line and then went up Angels Flight! Talk about dedication!

Special thanks to Carren Jao, who wrote a beautiful recap of the night for the LA Downtown News. These photos were shot by the lovely Carla Choy, and you can see more of them on our Facebook page. And don't forget to go to CicLAvia on 10/10/10 when ten miles of LA streets will be closed to cars!

Then, the next week we gathered at the amazing Homegirl Cafe in Chinatown for Vertical Veggies! We started out with Homegirl's tasty all-you-can-eat mini tacos and delicious fresh sangria while Fandango Sin Fronteras serenaded us with live music. Then we broke into three workshops: container gardening, vertical gardening, and cooking with fresh, homegrown produce. Guests spread out into Homegirl's various gardens, including a massive vegetable garden by Woolly Pockets where they grow many of the ingredients for their restaurant.

Depending on which skill they learned, guests took home planters of pea shoots made from plastic containers, seeds tucked into folded newspaper containers, or yummy heirloom tomato salsa. Thanks to our workshop leaders, master gardener Milli Macen-Moore, Meg Glasser from Urban Farming and chef Patricia Zarate, who each donated their time and knowledge for the evening. And a big thanks to Trekking LA for partnering with us on such a fun night!

There are more photos from the Vertical Veggies event over at our Facebook page. And be sure to check out LA Commons, Trekking LA and Homegirl Cafe for more fun events!

See you on September 17 for Park[ing] Day!

Park[ing] Day LA > September 17th!

It's baaaack! We're pleased once again to join our friends at Park[ing] Day LA as we transform a lowly concrete parking space into an eco-friendly pocket park on Friday, September 17th from 10am to 4pm. We will once again be in front of neighborhood fave, LOCAL restaurant, at 2943 Sunset Blvd. Come by, order lunch, have a lemonade, and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

This year, we plan to build a public performance space, with the help of talented architect Christian Chaudhari. Got a band? A guitar? Some bongos? Let us know! We're looking for musicians to play in our park all day.

Can't make it to our park during the day? Head to the Echo Park Film Center at 6pm where they'll be showing the movie Breaking Away in their ride-in theater park!

View Larger Map

Not familiar with Park[ing] Day? Here's more:
Too often, when people think of Los Angeles they envision a maze of asphalt, smog and traffic congestion. The automobile reigns supreme and as a result one’s ability to navigate through the City becomes compromised with the burden of too many vehicles clogging the road. Sidewalks have been narrowed and opportunities for open space, parks, civic plazas and public places have been sequestered into the hills, which unfortunately are often inaccessible to anyone without an automobile. Despite being home to one of the largest urban parks in North America (Griffith Park), Los Angeles significantly lacks adequate & accessible open space, urban parks, plazas and civic centers.

In 2005, the Rebar group, a small group out of San Francisco, opened eyes worldwide by transforming a metered parking spot into a park-for-a-day in an effort to make a public comment on the lack of quality open space in American cities. Their goal was to reprogram the urban surface by reclaiming streets for people to rest, relax and play and to:

• Promote a critical dialogue among artists, designers, activists, citizens, corporations, and government regarding the need for urban open space and they way in which streets are currently used.
• Energize civic life by questioning basic assumptions about urban space while offering provocative and meaningful alternatives.
• Connect artists, designers, and activists with ways to permanently reclaim the street for people.