For the last two weeks I traded sidewalks for rivers, a two-bedroom house for a two-person tent, and public transit for a rental car (yes, which I drove hundreds of miles without incident, thank you very much). Along the way I discovered some pretty amazing places I’d love to tell you all about, just as soon as I summit this mountain of laundry. And do something about these bug bites that have turned my skin into a lovely pattern of pink polka-dots. And get some proper gelato.

Summer finally showed up here in LA—complete with thunderstorms and humidity—just in time for me to get out of town. I’ll be on the road for a bit, hopefully filling my Flickr and Twitter streams with lots of adventures. Until then, it wouldn’t be summer without a repeat viewing of this clip from a memorable vacation to Silver Dollar City. For those of you not from the midwest, that’s in Branson, Missouri. Happy trails!

I’m still buzzing from the amazing response to last weekend’s City Listening II (and the success of the Dwell on Design conference, and the fun of emceeing the LABC’s Los Angeles Architectural Awards…I’m telling you, it was quite a week!). We’ll have a full recap of the evening, including photos, very soon, until then, you can read this review by Mike Neal at Architizer.

But before all that, I just wanted to show you this beautiful photo by Monica Orozco, which was taken at the very end of the night, and take a quick moment to thank my two lovely co-hosts—or as you can see from this photo, maybe three lovely co-hosts—Marissa Gluck and Haily Zaki. These ladies are two of the smartest, hardest-working, most creative forces of nature in this city. Over the last two years they have organized and strategized and materialized dozens of events with huge smiles on their faces and strong cocktails in their hands (except, you know, when Haily got knocked up). And in the process, they’ve also become two of my dearest friends. I can’t wait to see what the future will bring! And on that note, here’s what I read at the event to open it up:  Our de LaB manifesto, in rhyme, of course.

The de LaB Manifesto

We were tired of PowerPoints and panels and pretense
Sick of working the room at lame-ass design events
Tired of the stodginess that came with such happenings
We wanted to know what our neighbors were making

La Brea was picked as an arbitrary line,
But we knew wherever we drew it someone would mind
We welcome the Westsiders, they’re not ostracized
As long as they don’t lie about not crossing the 405

What began as a drinking club quickly turned civic
Our visions for the city became more optimistic
Don’t get me wrong, we still like the drinking
Alcohol is liquid innovation to fuel design thinking

de Lab gets people out of cars and into their city
Introduces neighbors and promotes collaborativity
I know that’s not a word, I invented it myself
de LaB is DIY: We do it ourselves

For design in LA we will walk and ride bikes
We take buses and trains and take LA River hikes
We’re a committed gang of creators who can make a difference
We’re raising a new generation of Los Angeles urbanists

Your support has been amazing for the events we’ve had before
There’s a whole LA out there we haven’t begun to explore
All we need is your support…
…actually, no, we really need your money

By drawing a line through the city, divided
We ended up making it feel more united
We love LA so much it makes us feel giddy
Now sit back, have a drink (that part is important!) and listen to your city

Thanks to everyone for coming and for supporting de LaB!

Update: In all the fabulosity of Saturday night, I screwed up and neglected to post the winning raffle tickets for our eight door prizes. If you were at City Listening and had a raffle ticket, check here to see if you won and email us if you did!

It’s going to be a big, fat, designy weekend here in LA and I hope that you can join me for as much of it as you can muster! First up, Friday, Saturday and Sunday is Dwell on Design, the West Coast’s largest design show and one of my favorite conferences of all time.

For the last few weeks I’ve been writing over at Dwell about all the highlights, including a beautiful tile collaboration between Heath Ceramics and Dwell, a free design clinic hosted by my friends at Architizer, Project H’s GreenAid seed bomb vending machines, David Thompson’s lovely Larchmont Village house, the announcement of a new Cleantech Corridor competition for LA, and an exciting collaboration between Dwell and Arkitip on 10 prints of 10 Dwell houses by 10 artists, including this piece by Andrew Holder (who I was thrilled to interview!). Plus, I got to go to Ed Begley, Jr.’s supergreen house—he’s talking Sunday—and we chatted about riding the bus. He does it!

If all that wasn’t a reason to come out, I’ll be speaking there, too, and I hope you can come by and say hi! Saturday at 12:30pm on the Sustainability stage I’m moderating a panel called Improvising and Improving LA Transit, showcasing how three Angelenos have taken a DIY approach to making the city’s transportation better. On my panel are three of my transit heroes: Dan Koeppel, founder of the 35-mile stairwalk named THE BIG PARADE, which I just wrote about here; Richard Ankrom, the artist who took it upon himself to improve an Los Angeles freeway sign (which I wrote about over at GOOD); and Joseph Prichard, a graphic designer who is improving bike signage, and whose Better Bikeways series I edit at GOOD.

And then at 5pm, same day, same stage, I’m moderating another panel, Watts House Project: Architecture, Art, and Sustainability, about one of the most exciting public art projects in the country, the Watts House Project, featuring Edgar Arceneaux, John Umbanhowar and Frank Escher.

And because I love you so much for reading this blog, I’d like to offer you a special discount on the Dwell conference. You’ll receive $15 off the Dwell Exhibition Plus Ticket (50% off the two-day Weekend Pass) if you purchase tickets online before Friday with the code: DWELL8B

But wait, there’s more! Saturday night, after my last panel at Dwell on Design, I’ll be scurrying up Spring Street to the Spring Arts Tower for our very first de LaB fundraiser: City Listening II.

We’ve got a killer lineup of design writers who are all going to be reading stories about LA, including Frances Anderton on “Living With Gehry,” John Chase ruminating about fun-size Twix bars, Sam Lubell reading bible verses, Tibby Rothman with an amazing (and true) art world story, Nick Adams on LA’s “subway,” Chris Nichols from Los Angeles Magazine, LA Creek Freak Joe Linton, LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, Rico Gagliano from the PRI show The Dinner Party Download, Brooke Hodge, Adrian Glick Kudler, Tom Marble, Marissa Gluck, and letters to LA from 826LA students. And yes, I’ll be reading my annual poem about design in LA. Plus, anyone who arrives by bike or transit receives a very special walking-themed door prize!

We couldn’t have done any of this without our amazing de LaB community. The event decor is currently being laser-etched by Crimson Collective (the same designers who built that giant bird nesting in the center of this year’s Coachella festival), and we’ll have a silent auction featuring items ranging from beautiful custom-built “barchitecture” by Jason King of Somewhere Something, to a walking tour of West Hollywood’s art and urban design with John Chase, to an amazing airplant sculpture by Kara Bartlet’s toHOLD. Plus, I can’t forget the tireless work of our most valuable de LaB community member: Derrick Schultz, who built our website and designed all the beautiful graphics.

We’ll also have delectable Asian-French eats by Flying Pig courtesy of The Architect’s Newspaper, vegan truffles by Nicobella, our well-named de LaB cocktails, and wine courtesy of FORM. And yes, there will be gelato, well, ice cream—did you really think I could throw a party without it? My good friends at Coolhaus will be serving up mini ice cream sandwiches with a very east-of-La Brea flavor: Horchata!

And because if you’ve read this far I really love you, I want to offer you a discount on City Listening tickets as well, if you purchase online before Saturday. Just use delab to get $5 off regular tickets, which include drinks, food and admission to the show; or delabVIP to get $10 off de LaB Groupie Tickets, which include drinks, food and show plus a guerrilla gardening kit from GreenAid, a very good chance at winning great door prizes, and an after party at the Crocker Club, conveniently located below the venue.

Bonus: If you make it to the after party, you just might get to see me collapse after this overload of awesomeness. Hope to see you there!

When the sky isn’t dumping a year’s worth of rain onto Los Angeles in five days, one of my favorite places to go in the city is the bike path of the LA River. This concrete chute is probably the most misunderstood place in all of the city, as well as one of the fastest-changing. Here, in the soft-bottom corridor of the river near Frogtown, it’s easy to imagine what the river was like before it got reigned in a half-century ago, which is also how it could look again in the future.

The Los Angeles River Master Plan was completed in 2007 by the lovely Mia Lehrer, among others, and contains all sorts of amazing ideas for revitalizing the watershed. Until then, there are small victories to be seen. Tons of pocket parks have sprung up along the river, and there’s a string of major rec centers where people’s soccer games echo into the concrete walls. Crews had just broken ground on a new bike path here (the paved one currently ends at Fletcher) and it made for a bit of a bumpy ride but it was exciting to see this part of the river finally getting some solid services.

But as much as I want the river to ease back towards naturalization, part of its strange beauty are moments like these graffiti-splotched walls near Hyperion, which I’d hate to lose in a total return to wilderness. A great resource that illustrates the many personalities of the river (as well as the many personalities along the river) is KCET’s awesome interactive river project for Departures. And if you just want to get a closer look at our riparian treasure, Friends of the LA River leads cleanup walks, birdwatching adventures, and other tours along the river.

A few blocks away from all this is more evidence of the river’s changing role in our city:  The great Coco’s Variety. This is a bike store, that’s also a purified water store, which also features, among many other things, a giant parts carousel filled with all sorts of things you never knew you could live without, from Band-Aids to Mexican wrestler figurines (made in Japan). While we were there, three kids were charged with choosing one toy each from this tower of goodness, and the decision looked excruciating. Keith has some more amazing photos of Coco’s.

I must have walked by this a thousand times and I never noticed it until I embarked upon a little pub crawl in an 80-degree Hollywood yesterday. The doorway to this smoke shop is made from the same terrazzo as the stars in the Walk of Fame.

It was a lovely day for finding a little sliver of Hollywood’s blue-blue sky, with some good music, impromptu Star Wars trivia, and possibly a football game buzzing in the background.

And, oh yeah, one of these, too.

I had a rather amazing experience last weekend at my Hand-Stitched Robot Ornament workshop, thanks to 826LA and Unique Los Angeles! We had five tables of madly-talented scientists sewing, gluing and pipe-cleaning away for hours as they each assembled (and programmed) their very own robots.

Here’s a relatively clean table shot, towards the beginning of the day.

Adorable lady robots. Check out their wheeled legs!

The wacky buttons I found at Moskatel’s in little packages called Grandma’s Grab Bag.

Everyone got so creative.

Loved the use of the letter beads and checked ribbon.

Perfect wheel buttons!

Pipe cleaners also made excellent bendable arms.

Unfinished but still beautiful. She planned to add bells to the bottom.

Even the young kids were able to sew and thread their own needles…I was so impressed!

This one is wearing a beautiful brooch.

We bought all the fabric, including this really amazing fabric covered in sequins, at Michael Levine.

Look at those brass button eyes.

The day wore on and eventually all the robots were finished, rolling away with their manufacturers covered in glitter, sequins and ribbon. Thanks to everyone who came and made a robot, or who stopped by and said hi, it was so fun. I am going to be selling a few of my robots at the Echo Park Time Travel Mart in the upcoming weeks:  I’ll let you know when they’re there!

More photos here!

Say goodbye to off-the-shelf cartoon-character metalscapes anchored in skinned knee-ready blacktop. In the latest issue of I.D. I got to explore a renaissance in intelligent playground design thanks to some of the country’s most playful architects, designers and landscape architects. From the “loose parts” designed by David Rockwell that encourage interactive, construction-oriented play, to a simple grid of tires and sand for math games by Project H Design, to the arroyos by Nancy Power that teach kids about the scarcity of water in Southern California, to Lee H. Skolnick’s astrophysics-educating Rocket Park Mini Golf (part of my Queens walking tour!) these are not your standard jungle gyms. Check out the incredible slideshow of playgrounds as well as some incredibly insightful thoughts about play and education from designers, in “Recess Rethought.”

You know the rest of the story. I took the stairs and, well, it turned out to be a stairway to heaven.

For the next eight years I made finding those public staircases my job. I investigated dead ends I had located on Google Maps, got confused on twisty double-back roads and ended up in Griffith Park, and walked onto plenty of people’s patios by accident. I would orchestrate my runs, my hikes, my errands around which staircase I felt like walking up that day. I thought I discovered these magical ascents all by myself. I thought I was special!

But then I learned there were lots of other walkers just like me. And just like spotting those stairs for the first time changed the way I saw LA, knowing that other people loved those stairs, too…well, let’s just say now things are really looking up (and down, but mostly up).

On July 18 and 19, THE BIG PARADE will bring together this Walker, those other walkers, and dozens of other people who will support us Walkers and walkers along the way. But since you may not be a walker, or you might like to walk but you hear things like Angels Flight to the Hollywood sign, 2 days, 40 miles, and 135 stairways and feel like you might not have the time, inclination or kneecaps to make it the whole way, here are five easy ways to join or help.

1) Do one of the “loops.” There are several loops where the route crosses itself, delivering you back to your vehicles or public transit options. Check the timetables: Day 1, Day 2. The best loops are in Echo Park (Saturday morning, 11am, meet at Chango) and Silver Lake (Sunday morning, 8am, meet at LA Mill).

2) My house is just two blocks from the midpoint, the Music Box Steps (above), where some people will camp in a park Saturday night. The steps were made famous by the 1932 short film starring Laurel & Hardy, which you can watch online in its entirety ( it doesn’t look much like that empty hillside anymore). You can start at my house Sunday morning around 8.

3) Just do the final canyon leg to the Hollywood sign, where the landscape is as dramatic as the prices at the Beachwood Market, where you can meet us at 5:30pm Sunday. This is a fun hike to do if you’ve never gotten to the sign this way, and we’re all going to have to come back down this way anyway unless someone pays one of those Sunset Ranch horse people for a ride (not a bad idea). Alternatively, if you live in Beachwood, you could offer to drive our sorry selves down from underneath the Hollywood sign and to a place that serves Advil cocktails.

4) Drink or eat at a place along the way and throw things at us (preferably water balloons or other water-filled items). We’ll be at Chango around 11am Saturday. We’ll be at Cafe Tropical around 5pm Saturday (if you meet us here you can go to an urban farm). We’ll be at LA Mill Sunday morning around 8:30am. There are many, many more places to meet along the way, just check the timetables: Day 1, Day 2.

5) Spread the word to anyone—including yourself—who lives along the route to acknowledge us or give us something as we pass! We like water, water balloons, hoses, infinity pools, cold Budweisers and bathrooms (in that order). But you could also just happen to be blasting “Walk This Way” and we would be thrilled. Get creative! Seriously, if you know of something cool along the way—and I do mean cool—let me know.

And because I can’t be a walker without being a writer, I will be doing the Twittering at @BIGPARADELA this weekend. So if you really want to know what’s up, just check in there. Lots more tips, and FAQ and information can be found on the website. All the stairways are numbered and segments color-coded on the route maps so you’ll always be able to locate us on or between staircases. But I do hope to see you on the stairs!

Here is what you need to know:

• It will happen on Thursday, May 21 from 11:00am to 8:30pm.

• It involves young, raw, intelligent, unfathomable talent.

• It involves gelato. Prominently.

• If you are in San Francisco, you should set aside the hours of 2-4pm on Thursday, May 21.

• If you are not in San Francisco, you should set aside the hours of 2-4pm on Thursday, May 21 for crying.

• Just kidding about that last part, you’ll actually be able to participate as well.

• But it would be a lot better if you were in San Francisco.

• This whole thing would not be possible without the sleepless nights of Randy J. Hunt, Ross Pike and everyone at Citizen Scholar.

• Like every sentence uttered in 2009, it includes Twitter. If you’re not already, follow me @gelatobaby to join in on the fun.

• More information will be revealed on a need-to-know basis at springshowwith.gelatobaby.com. It’s not live yet. But it will be.

• In the meantime, get out those spoons.