Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House (right) goes on the block at Christie’s on May 13, so Frances chats with a bunch of experts who answer the question: Is it architecture or art? It’s the first time a residence has been offered in a fine art sale like this and it could go for as much as $25 million.

Can’t swing the $25 mil? You can get in on the action by ordering a pair of J.Crew chinos or perhaps some 7 for all Mankind jeans, where the house was featured prominently in promotional pieces this spring. What a coincidence!

Then Frances talks to Disney Imagineer Kim Irvine (you’d think they’d make her change her name to Anaheim) about the changes to It’s a Small World at Disneyland. You probably heard that the ride originally closed for renovations because the boats needed to be widened to accommodate, um, larger passengers, something I can vouch for since our boat got totally stuck last summer somewhere between Canada and the Eskimos. They came over the speaker and told us to to lean to the right.

But you might not know that drastic artistic changes are also planned for the ride. According to blog chatter Disney characters will be incorporated, and in the ultimate offense, the Papua New Guinea rainforest will be cut down to make way for something called Up With America. The ride was created by one of my heroes, artist Mary Blair, and her family has issued a statement asking Disney not to alter her work. But Irvine, who apprenticed with Blair, defends Disney’s decisions to change the ride and assures us we shan’t be disappointed. We can judge for ourselves when it re-opens later this year.

Finally, the favorite building of the show is the residence of architect Ray Kappe, who is also the designer of the pre-fabulous LivingHomes prototype in Santa Monica. You can take a tour of the Kappe residence with a scruffy David Duchovny in this clip from the Showtime show Californication, where the house does some beautiful acting.

Update: Reader Steve says that’s a Kappe but that’s not the Kappe and he’s right. Although I saw the item on SCI-Arc’s website that said it was the Kappe residence (and you’d think they would know), it’s actually the Benton House, according to Curbed LA.

Pop-up stores have been popping up all over New York for years but perhaps because of the perceived drive-by mentality of Los Angeles, they haven’t really caught on over here. I’d argue that if you pick the neighborhood and the concept properly, it would actually enforce that sense of community everyone likes to claim doesn’t exist. Paper had their annual storefront on La Brea in November, and although it was packed uncomfortably tight—a feeling that was enforced by Barbara Bestor’s shrink-wrapped palette interiors—it did gather most of the coolest LA art and design vendors in one sweaty place for a full 24 hours. Even Lindsay Lohan was there. Don’t worry, it was a dry event.

Two big LA pop-ups will be up and running by next month: the Comme des Garçons Guerilla Store in downtown opened in February and an outpost of the Storefront for Art and Architecture will open on Sunset Boulevard on April 11. The Japanese fashion house Comme des Garçons (I highly recommend their wallets) does this kind of thing all the time in different cities, but here they set up shop in an alley off 4th and Spring, making them the only high fashion brand to have a dedicated store in downtown (and hard to find, here are some tips). It’s the first pop-up experience for the NY-based Storefront, who will feature an exhibition that looks really cool called Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed until May 17.

When I was in Austin last week I spied the gallery showing the latest installation of Fritz Haeg’s Edible Estates initiative, where he takes grassy resource-guzzling front lawns and turns them into produce-providing pocket gardens. He talks about the dozens of front-lawn gardens he’s planting across the country and his upcoming book, Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn on today’s show. If you’re not familiar with him or his projects, check out Fritz’s website, and come to MOCA PDC on March 29 at 3pm when he’ll be making jam with the guys from Fallen Fruit.

Also on the show: Design writer and NY Times contributor Kimberly Stevens talks about last weekend’s CA Boom, and a tribute to the inspiring Nader Khalili, who died March 5. He was an Iranian-born architect who founded the Cal-Earth Forum, dedicated to building affordable housing with baked earth.

Check out the DnA calendar this month, freshly restocked with delicious items. If you know of any design or architecture events in Los Angeles, please send them my way. You can listen to DnA on KCRW live every 3rd Tuesday at 2:30pm PST, by podcasting through iTunes, or by streaming the audio at any time by clicking the little ‘Listen’ button underneath each show’s title on KCRW’s website.

Okay, it was actually on yesterday’s DnA, but this month’s show was early (2nd Tuesday instead of 3rd) so technically I’m still ahead of the game. “BCAM Comes to Town” opens with a very timely feature this Valentine’s Day week: Where to have dinner when you want your date to whisper sweet nothings, and where to go when you’d prefer he’d say nothing at all.

To illustrate the rising decibels at restaurants in LA, Frances Anderton screams over the dinner din with my hero Jonathan Gold, Pulitzer Prize-winning restaurant critic for the LA Weekly. An acoustician explains the design decisions behind rock concert-level Osteria Mozza (complete with Mario Batali’s signature hard-rocking soundtrack, which if you don’t like apparently you can suck his, um, salumi) vs. the pleasant hum of Providence. Frances also recommends restaurants designed by Shawn Hausman—he did the restaurants at both of LA’s Standard Hotels—who actually uses the acoustic tiles as a design element.

The rest of the show is a round-up of talking heads commenting on the new BCAM, including a sexy Italian-accented interlude from architect Renzo Piano. I especially liked the descriptions of BCAM from three local critics: Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell both had issues with the building’s relationship to the street (”It’s a billboard,” says Greg; “monolithic travertine facade like a Macy’s,” says Sam), but Jade Chang, who also loved Chris Burden’s vintage streetlamp installation along Wilshire, thought the palm-fringed plaza had a nice pedestrian edge. Frances also mentions that BCAM is great for kids, and I completely agree, although you should be prepared to explain exactly why they can’t climb on the gigantic red toy firetruck.

One more thing to note: I edit the DnA calendar, so if you know of any design or architecture events in Los Angeles, please send them my way. Also worth noting, you can listen to DnA on KCRW live every 3rd Tuesday at 2:30pm PST, by podcasting through iTunes, or by streaming the audio at any time by clicking the little ‘Listen’ button underneath each show’s title on KCRW’s website.