“Sculptural” architecture is now in full flower – at MOCA, and LACMA. DnA explores the MOCA show following the last minute makeover of its installation and the vast “inkblot” being proposed in place of four older buildings at the county museum — with guests Sam Lubell, Anne Marie Burke, Peter Zumthor, Michael Govan and architect Craig Hodgetts. Also, Mariana Amatullo and Elisa Ruffino discuss …

In March, an online petition was started by two students from the Women in Design organization at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, making the case that Denise Scott Brown should receive co-credit, or what Scott Brown called “Pritzker inclusion,” with her husband and architectural partner Robert Venturi for the Pritzker Prize he received in 1991. The petition garnered thousands of signatures and public support …

E3, the giant gaming convention has just left town; yesterday, DnA joined the throngs at the convention center to find out what was the big takeaway from this year’s show. There we ran into Phil Owen, an ardent gamer who also reports on the video game industry for many publications including VG247.
He had been assigned to cover the big producers, including Bethesda, Activision, Square Enix, EA, and some …

Talk to many in the design community in LA and they will tell you they are already exhausted, because June is so busy. Let’s look at what’s happening: E3, the bumper gaming and electronics show on now through Thursday. Then this Friday night sees the opening party of the Los Angeles Design Festival with a party that will honor veteran designer Deborah Sussman. A …

This is a rose. It is one of many that were nurtured by the hand of Carlos Navarro Franco, a gentle, smiling groundskeeper at Santa Monica Community College, who was killed last Friday by a weaponized young man. Mr. Franco also nurtured two other roses, his beautiful daughters Leticia and Marcela; Marcela was also killed, while in the car with her father as they …

Michael Schmidt has made clothing out of legos, crystal, and razorblades. Now he’s set himself the challenge of creating a 3D printed, powdered plastic dress that moves with the body — the body of Dita Von Teese. On this show, Rose Apodaca talks to the designer about his life and amazing costumes. A “Wilshire Boulevard Story” looks at a landmark in transition: the Los Angeles County Museum …

An ongoing exhibit at the Getty, Overdrive: L.A Constructs the Future, explores the architectural, economic, and industrial metamorphosis of Los Angeles in the post World War II period. Last week, the Getty also held a two-day symposium called “Urban Ambition: Assessing the Evolution of Los Angeles” that addressed these issues in a series of lectures, panels, and short films. DnA’s Caroline Chamberlain attended the event …

3-D printing has been applied to guns, food, prosthetic limbs, and of course architecture and product design.
It is also being experimented with by fashion designers, who find that one of the challenges is to make printed plastic move with the body. 
Michael Schmidt has spent 30 years cladding Cher, Madonna, Lady Gaga and other material girls in stunning costumes composed of unbendable materials: from legos to sterling silver links; Swarovski …

Audio expert and visual artist Tyler Adams (also an alumnus of KCRW) has brought the two worlds together in an art exhibit currently on show at Steve Turner Contemporary. Abe Rivera is a graphic designer and contributor to the DnA blog (also an alumnus of KCRW) and wrote this review of the show.
Material Excitement and Aural Architecture

Whether you live in a secluded part of the …

This weekend President Obama has traded in the White House for a pink house, meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping Friday in Sunnylands, the rose-tinted desert home of the media magnate Walter Annenberg and his wife Leonore, in Rancho Mirage. (He had a trying time getting there, starting Friday with a press conference at which he had to swat away charges more commonly leveled at his guest’s government …