October 12, 2010
Whether it was genuine backtracking or an elaborate P.R. ruse, we may never know. But Gap has quickly junked its new logo after what it calls an “outpouring of comments from customers and the online community in support of the iconic blue box logo.” Cliff Kuang at Fast Company design blog has tracked the logo flap from the start. (Fast Company also brought attention to Tropicana’s bad orange juice carton design, which The Hot Sheet noted at the time.) He says, “You gotta wonder: Are rebrandings — whether bold and visionary or downright terrible — impossible in the age of Twitter and Facebook? Will companies know when an outcry isn’t pointing to a terrible design, but rather just people refusing to embrace change?” But you also gotta wonder whether some of the outrage came from designers sore about how Gap commissioned the new logo. The company used the reviled “crowd-sourcing” method, in which designs are solicited at large… for free. No member of the design community – hurting for work like everyone else these days – would appreciate a logo created that way. Such practices drive down artists’ fees even further, especially when pursued by major corporations.
June 23, 2010
The Huffington Post blog/publication has added an important beat to its roster of local coverage. Transportation writer Joel Epstein is now covering issues related to Transportation Oriented Development (TOD): compact real estate projects at or near transportation hubs (light rail, subway, bus lines) that encourage walkability, discourage driving, help to improve the balance of jobs to housing, and help preserve energy and resources. All you have to do is look at that ghastly BP gusher to see the value in TODs. Epstein’s columns – which also cover Los Angeles’ expanding rail system – appear regularly in the much-read Huffington Post.
Says Epstein on why he chose this topic: “California is changing thanks to natural population growth, resources challenges, congestion and new thinking about the kind of lives Californians want to live. In the future we will see even more TODs built around sensible transportation options.”
Very sensibly on display were the transportation options offered at the June 4 TOD Summit in Hollywood, created by ULI Los Angeles. Epstein covered the event from all angles. This includes the growth of TODs outside of Los Angeles: “Many of the most exciting projects are ones the conference sponsors are building in Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere rather than in the United States and more pointedly, Los Angeles.”
Epstein also serves as consultant for the business, labor, environmental and civic coalition Move LA.
April 9, 2010
The catalytic power of Transit Oriented Developments (TODs) is well-known: Hollywood’s snowballing economic development, for example, includes diverse densities surrounding well-designed transit hubs. But not all TODs were created equal. So ULI Los Angeles (a district council of Urban Land Institute) launched a series of TOD Technical Assistance Panels (TAPs) to re-strategize under-performing transportation centers to help them achieve full potential. The first of these workshops – led by volunteer urban-design professionals – recently presented its findings at the Slauson Avenue Blue Line station.
One key proposal may rankle those who support TODs purely to get people out of cars: The ULI TAP urges more parking… particularly, a new parking structure connecting to the boarding platform.
“Adding parking is not ‘good’ from a typical green perspective, but it will increase ridership,” said Jonathan Watts, Slauson TAP chair and principal with Cuningham Group Architecture . Indeed, many successful TODs – from Long Beach’s Blue Line stations to the large Metrolink hubs – include strong “park and ride” components.
The media has taken notice. Articles on the TOD recommendations include Urban Land Institute’s Ground Floor blog, Planetizen, L.A. Curbed, and L.A. Streets blog. Lots of heated comments on the topic – especially whether it’s smart to include parking at TODs – in all these online publications.
ULI Los Angeles will present final recommendations on this on three other TOD workshops as part of June 4, TOD Summit in Hollywood.
February 1, 2010
The best party of the year also celebrated what’s best about Los Angeles. ULI Los Angeles’ inaugural LARC (Los Angeles Real Creativity) Awards dazzled a full house at 5900 Wilshire Blvd late last year with a high-concept awards experience that stimulated the mind and the senses. Even the pre-event wine-and-martini hour (with hors d’oeuvres by Wolfgang Puck) was artful and interactive, held across the street at Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “Urban Light” courtyard.
ULI Los Angeles just published some of the best event and party photos from LARC. And media coverage of the event was universally glowing… as in this article by Alissa Walker in Fast Company. The ULI LARC Awards will be presented annually to four recipients who, through their extraordinary vision and creative action, are helping to change our world (and our lives) as Angelenos, Americans and global citizens.
January 20, 2010
While most people scurry through Disney theme parks enjoying the fun and spectacle, urban planners and architects notice Disney’s complex design. Sam Gennawey goes even deeper, stopping to inspect hidden strategies or whimsical details. His blog, Samland’s Disney Adventures, is a daily dissection of these intricacies. Recent posts include: what happens when you eavesdrop on Main Street’s old-fashioned hand-crank telephones; Disney’s Tiki Room interpretation of a traditional Hawaiian lanai; and Walt’s innovative strategy of a single park entrance leading to Main Street which “hubs” into the various lands at Disneyland, each of which lures and orients the visitor with a dominant architectural icon, e.g. Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. (This approach has become a mainstay of new urbanist city planning.) As Gennawey says, “Samland is an urban planner’s view of the history and design of Disney’s North American parks plus some helpful touring tips.”
January 15, 2010
Used to be that Disneyland was Orange County’s only place for futuristic rail: You know, monorails, people movers. But the county will soon get two huge and transformational rail improvements. Anaheim will be the southern terminus of California’s high-speed rail, super-charging the city’s role as a transportation hub. Meanwhile, Metrolink commuter rail is about to expand daytime service, catalyzing smaller but equally important transit hubs in communities such as Fullerton, Orange and Santa Ana. It’s in these cities where new economic activity in the region will happen, via Transit Oriented Developments, or TODs.
The high-speed rail planned to connect Anaheim (and Los Angeles’ Union Station) with Las Vegas, San Francisco and Sacramento is one component of the emerging Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center. A kind-of West Coast Grand Central Station, it will bring together Amtrak, Metrolink, bus service, shuttles, bikes/pedestrians, the high-speed rail and a “fixed guideway” train connecting to, naturally, Disneyland.
Paolucci Communication Arts’ Jack Skelley gets on board all these new developments in this article just published in Riviera magazine.
December 1, 2009
This promises to be an inspiring event. The Los Angeles District Council of Urban Land Institute presents the first annual LARC (Los Angeles Real Creativity) Awards December 5, 2009 at 5900 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, starting at 6 p.m. It’s an awards show, but don’t expect to be yawning over a plate of rubber chicken. Dramatically expanding from the usual architecture and real-estate awards format, LARC’s categories include: design, an innovative design – product, building, urban land plan, public art – still in its conceptual stage; place, a completed building, public space, neighborhood or art installation which may have world-changing potential; enterprise, an especially effective and innovative company, group, program, grass-roots initiative, community organization or social movement; and idea, a singular “big idea” with profound and far-reaching consequences – a “game changer.” Finalists range from the Flower Street Bioreactor to the Downtown L.A. Artwalk to the Jet Propulsion Lab’s Imagine Mars project.
The presenters are equally inspiring. KCRW’s Frances Anderton (“Design and Architecture”) is the MC, and presenters include Frank Gehry and Stuart Ketchum. The evening begins with cocktails at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “Urban Light” installation (designed by artist Chris Burden) then moves across the street to official event. Here’s a link to the LARC website, which tells you how to get tickets. And here’s a write-up that appeared on NBC 4.
October 29, 2009
What’s it like to be Candy Spelling? A few members of ULI Los Angeles got a sense at the only official tour to-date of The Century, the new residential tower in Los Angeles’ Century City by Robert A.M. Stern Architects. The building opens to residents in early 2010. The Urban Land Institute visitors didn’t see Spelling’s $47 million penthouse, but they are the first group to behold two model units: one designed by Stern and the other by Modernists Marmol Radziner. Both are sleek expressions of The Century concept: highrise “estates” drenched in amenities, swaddled in seclusion, with super ocean and urban views. The verdict? “Ultra gorgeous,” said one guest. Of course, you’d expect that at prices pushing beyond $1,400 per square foot. “That’s easily the highest in Los Angeles,” said Century developer Bill Witte, president of The Related Group. (Spelling’s pad is even more, reportedly $2,848 per foot.) At the same time, however, Witte confessed that Read More
July 27, 2009
Disney Blog has unearthed Walt Disney’s secret footage capturing the construction of Disneyland prior to opening in 1955. Disney, who had already used time-lapse in his nature films, erected camera towers throughout the construction site precisely to document the building of the park. Imagineering officials narrating the films note that Disneyland was built in nine months, while Disneyland in Paris took five years to build. Other factoids for Disney geeks: There were no guide rails on the Autopia ride, so drivers could pass each other. There were no fences around lawns on Main Street, so pedestrians could cross the grass. Art directors used studio artisans to create attractions such as Jungle Cruise. Architects created many buildings — again using studio technology — with different themes on opposite sides… e.g. hacienda style on one side, New Orleans on the other. Sleeping Beauty’s Castle was built four years before the Sleeping Beauty movie came out: Disney was that brand-confident that it built the product promotion before the product.
June 23, 2009
The “cinematic” trailer promoting the new Beatles Rock Band game is excellent marketing because it’s so artful. Its animated 2:47 tells the Beatles story – from Liverpool’s the Cavern to the unresolved end of their career – in classic 1960s graphic style. On a purely design level, there is a dramatic shift half-way through from minimalist angles and monochromatic grays and beiges to opulent psychedelia, ending with The Beatles riding bizarre, blue elephant/rhinos to the edge of a cliff. But joined with Read More
