One of my favorite stories about living in Los Angeles involves an artist, a freeway (well, two, in fact), an and a time when I had a car, a commute and a full time job. I got to write an essay about all of it over at GOOD: The Fake Freeway Sign that Became a Real Public Service. That’s part of my weekly column for GOOD, Design is a Verb.
In the magazine this month, GOOD celebrates sloooooooooowness, and they asked me to do a piece about how urban environments are designed for the speed at which we move through them. The concept was to contrast a block in New York with a block in L.A. I happened to be in New York at the time and walked to Greene Street, in SoHo, where I looked at and listened to how people—mostly pedestrians—interacted with the street. And when it came to a part of L.A. that was built for reading quickly, it was obvious to me there is no building better suited than Randy’s Donuts. You can see that piece in the Slow Issue or online at Reading the City.
Finally, GOOD’s just launched a project with Pepsi called Refresh Everything where they’re giving away grants to worthy projects—some $20 million worth of funding, which apparently is normally what they spend on the Super Bowl. Check out the site where you can learn more about how this works. They tapped a bunch of writers to contribute stories about projects already in motion that fit with the kinds of ideas they’re looking to fund, and I got to write a piece about the awesome sculpture park in St. Louis, Citygarden.
