I had always been fascinated with the story of the apartments: they were designed by great midcentury architect Rudolph Schindler for a family in the 1930s, so they could rent out the remaining units and have financial security. But it wasn’t until a few years ago that I knew the identities of the family who currently resided within those walls. And as I discovered as I spent the day with filmmaker Joe DeMarie and his wife Madeleine Brand (who you may know from the public radio show that bears her name), they bought and lovingly restored the property for the very same reasons: to give their children a great place to grow up, and also ensure their future.

But it’s what happened between those two families, in a story that spans over 60 years, that’s absolutely amazing. Head over to Dwell to read my story “Self Preservation.” And thanks to Joe and Madeleine for their passion and dedication to keeping this little corner of Silver Lake history alive.

Top photo by Jessica Haye and Clark Hsiao

Forget resolutions, poo-pooing the past 12 months, or drinking heavily to delete the shortcomings of the year. 2010 was actually an incredibly fun, productive time for me as a writer, and I can only hope that 2011 will bring as much energy and excitement to my work. So instead of looking ahead, I decided to examine the dozen or so stories I’ve written in the past year that I really loved, add some context and backstory, as well as some of the response I got from them. The hope is that I can learn from what made them so good, and apply that to what I choose to take on in the future. And of course, I hope you’ll enjoy looking back, too. So here they are, in order of appearance…

The Fake Freeway Sign that Became a Real Public Service
GOOD, January 2010
Just after the new year I read a story in the LA Weekly and learned that one of my favorite pieces of public art had vanished from LA’s streets. Richard Ankrom’s fake freeway sign that he installed to help drivers find a tricky downtown LA exit had been a fixture of my life in LA, as well as one of the greatest design stories I had ever heard. And the postscript to the story—that essentially Caltrans had not only left up the sign but “accepted” his suggested change when they put up a new sign—is even more unbelievable. I wrote an essay about the story behind the sign for GOOD, and was amazed by the response to my piece: It was the top story on GOOD for weeks, and was then syndicated by Jalopnik. Later in the year, we invited Richard Ankrom to participate on a panel at the Dwell conference on alternative transit in LA. It’s still my favorite LA story.

iPad Name Not the First Choice for Women. Period.
Fast Company, January 2010
For years, we talked about the mythical “Apple tablet,” so when Steve Jobs finally stepped onto the stage and announced the actual product almost a year ago we could hardly believe our ears. iPad? iPad? Everyone was completely baffled that Apple had chosen such an, um, sanitary name. I started putting together a story about the comments (like the fact “iTampon” was trending on Twitter) as well as some thoughts about Apple’s man-centric design culture, and a link to an awesomely prescient Mad TV sketch. By the end of the press conference, the post was edited and up and being Tweeted around the world. It got the most traffic of any other story on the site that month. And funnily enough, a year later, we don’t even think about the name anymore. Such is the power of Apple.

Who Pood on the Hollywood Sign?
Fast Company, February 2010
My vote for the most ill-conceived publicity campaign of the year comes courtesy of the Trust for Public Land, who decided it would be a good idea to change the Hollywood sign’s message to help raise money to purchase the peak next door. I watched, in horror, as the sign changed from SALLYWOOD to SAVE THE POOD to finally SAVE THE PEAK throughout the weekend, adding to my story the entire time. Then I wrote another story at GOOD about how this was a huge missed opportunity to engage local artists in the cause. It all ended well, I guess, since Hugh Hefner ponied up the cash to buy the land at the last minute, and supposedly, we’ll all get 138 new acres of open space. But the most fun part of the entire experience was spending the day hiking around the sign as they started to drape the letters, which ended with me climbing over a fence and ripping open my pants. That made for a fun bus ride home.

Why Can’t the World’s Best Architects Build Better Websites?
Fast Company, March 2010
I’ve grumbled about the awfulness of architect websites along with the rest of the design world, but I’d never actually done anything about it. Until this year. When the new social network for architects named Architizer launched on the West Coast, I made some kind of offhand comment at the party like “this is so easy to use, why can’t all architect’s sites look like this?” So I used that opportunity to take top architects to task for creating slow-loading, Flash-y, unusable web presences. Reaction to the piece was mostly a widespread sigh of “finally!” and I even went to a USC class to talk about the piece with architecture students to help steer them towards creating their own user-friendly websites. Maybe the next generation will finally get it.

Here’s Why the Banksy Movie is a Banksy Prank
Fast Company, April 2010
The moment I walked out of the premiere of the Banksy movie, Exit Through the Gift Shop, I started testing out theories on my fellow moviegoers that the whole movie was an elaborate art world prank. Two days later, I published my piece on Fast Company outlining my argument and immediately got bombarded with emails and comments from people on both sides of the theory, including a great exchange with Shepard Fairey. My article is cited extensively in the Wikipedia article for Mr. Brainwash, which is pretty exciting, and now that the DVD is out, I’ve been hearing from more people than ever, including someone who just today called my story “appalling” on Twitter. Who knew that people would feel so passionately about street art?

If You Lived Here, You’d Be Urban By Now
GOOD, Spring 2010
In late 2009 and early 2010, I went to the grand openings of two massive “green” developments: CityCenter in Las Vegas and the new W Hollywood in LA. Although both of them touted everything from natural materials to walkability, I had a really hard time believing that either of them were actually attracting residents with true sustainable lifestyles. This was my chance to finally speak out against all these “transit-friendly,” “urban living” developments that were basically promoting total bullshit to super-rich potential residents who couldn’t care less about bike parking. A year later, both developments are still getting slammed by critics, and still having trouble selling their residential units.

Why I Write About Design Now
GOOD, May 2010
It’s always irked me that New York’s “Design Week” is actually a few days in May timed with the presence of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair at the city’s convention center. In short, it’s a celebration of chairs, which ignores what the rest of what the design world is really about. Design needs to crawl out from the overdecorated living rooms and style sections of newspapers and establish itself as a driver for change, which is exactly what the Cooper-Hewitt’s Triennial, Why Design Now? attempted to do. I got all ranty in this piece for GOOD, which attacks a review of the show in the New York Times (they call it a “green design” show) and envisions a future of design coverage that’s not stuck in the Home section.

Redesigning Uncle Sam
Studio 360, July 2010
I was honored to appear on Studio 360 twice this year, once to introduce their Redesign Valentine’s Day challenge, and again to judge the winner of its Fourth of July Redesign challenge. The winner, Brendan Condit created a smart campaign based on JFK’s call for service, and spun it in a way that was endearing and intelligent. I love participating in these awesome little contests, but talking to the show’s host Kurt Andersen is especially fun, and a bit surreal since he’s in New York:  I get to go to this little studio in the backyard of a house just off Melrose and talk to his disembodied voice. Usually I start by mentioning how lovely the weather is in LA. I love radio.

Issue One: Comeback
Longshot, August, 2010
By far, the most incredible journalism experience of the year was working on the made-in-48-hours magazine Longshot. Spending a weekend in the real, live company of a few dozen brilliant, creative people—especially the issue’s art director, Keith Scharwath—working towards a shared, printed goal was such a treat to my virtual, digitized soul. You can read more about the nail-biting, non-sleeping weekend here. And you can still buy a copy of Issue One (which I sure hope you will) read some stories from Issue One. Look out for the next collaboration, and how you can contribute, over at the Longshot site.

Layer Tennis Commentary
Coudal, September 2010
Every Friday afternoon during the summer, my friends at Coudal pit two graphic designers against each other in a game of Layer Tennis. The designers pass a Photoshop (or Illustrator, or Flash) file between them, each getting about 20 minutes to riff on the other person’s work, for 10 full rounds. It’s difficult to explain, and even more difficult to provide real-time, play-by-play commentary, as I did for the third time this September during the match of Kate Bingaman-Burt and Frank Chimero. I include this “piece” because I absolutely love the challenge of writing live, which is essentially what I got to do, and I really enjoyed the interplay of Kate and Frank’s work with my words in this match. You can see each layer here by clicking the numbers to the right just under the banner, and my commentary on each page.

An Exclusive Interview with the New Gap Logo
Co.Design, October 2010
By the second day it had been revealed, it was obvious that everyone hated the new Gap logo. So when a Twitter account popped up claiming to be the “voice” of the new logo, I came up an idea that would set us apart from the other coverage: Why not conduct an interview with the logo itself? I reached out to the still-anonymous author, and he agreed to do his first official interview. To make the joke even more authentic, I conducted the interview pretending I was the voice of the new Co.Design logo, making it a simple conversation between two logos on the topic of the latest identity crisis. People loved this story. Ah, design humor.

The Rise of the Bus-Riding Celebrity
GOOD, October 2010
Earlier in the year, I’d read a story in the Huffington Post about Mad Men actor Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Pete on the show. It mentioned that he didn’t own a car and liked to take public transportation everywhere in LA. In October, the New York Times trailed Kartheiser on a night out in Hollywood and Echo Park, where he takes the bus and train everywhere, and says some really inspiring things about the positive aspects of taking transit. It got me thinking:  With so many supposedly eco-minded celebrities in LA, why don’t more take public transit? I wrote this column about it at GOOD and then put a call out for more stories about celebrities who take transit (like Ed Begley Jr., who I visited at his super-green home and talked to about all this). I’m actually still collecting names and anecdotes and have some plans for including this in a new project that will launch next year.

USC/Annenberg Getty Fellowship
Gelatobaby, November 2010
If you wondered where I was for much of November, I was living in downtown LA, being immersed in the introduction to my USC/Annenberg Getty Fellowship, which you can read more about here. I was chosen as one of seven arts journalists from all over the world to participate in this program, and although I still haven’t written anything comprehensive about my experience so far (I promise it’s coming soon!) I can guarantee you it was probably the most life-changing experience of my career until now. I realized through this process that I want to write locally, focusing my efforts and my energy on the people and places that make LA what it is and what it will be. Look for more here on exactly what that will entail, but until then, you can read the posts I wrote each day and the essay I wrote as part of the application process.

Here’s to an equally prolific year in 2011, and all the best to you and yours. Happy New Year!

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!

The new W Hollywood Hotel & Residences is about a month from being open. I wrote about it for Dwell back in June (and rode out an earthquake during that tour). Last week, I got to sneak inside with some of the architects.

The highlight on the rooftop pool deck is definitely these cool cabanas by Daly Genik.

And, of course, the view. Hollywood for the holidays.

I got to check out some stuff inside, too, like a few of the rooms and the lobby bar.

The rooms closer to the Boulevard are better. This is the unbelievable view from one of the VIP suites.

But I was most fascinated watching these guys hang the Swarovski chandelier.

It kinda looks beautiful just like this, don’t you think?

We’ll be having a de LaB there when it opens next month, so be sure to sign up for our mailing list! More photos here.

What is it about pie this summer? First there was PieLab, the incredible space designed by a team at Project M in Greensboro, Alabama, where folks from all over town can commiserate over a slice of Key Lime and a cup of coffee. Then, when I interviewed Good Foodie Evan Kleiman for Dwell, she mentioned she was embarking upon a Pie-a-Day project, baking it in the morning and taking it with her wherever she happened to go (I bet she’s got a nifty portable pie safe). Sure enough, a few weeks later, she’s made upwards of 18 pies. And out of pure coincidence, when I finally—after eight years in LA, shoot me—made it over to her restaurant Angeli Caffe for dinner Sunday, we got the last piece of Pie #16: Double Crust Apple Pie. They even threw in the vanilla gelato for free.

I am actually not the pie maker in our household; that honor is bestowed upon a man who not only makes excellent apple pies, but makes them with the appropriate Apple logo. But I do have a little something pie-like I like to make this time of year. It’s not sweet—I’ll take savory any day—but it does have a crust, fruit and many, many fans. And it’s perfect to make this week, as the heirlooms start to show their shiny dimpled cheeks at the farmers market.

Tomato Pie
6 tomatoes; any kind really, but I like using Japanese or heirlooms
1 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped basil
2 cups mayonnaise
3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper
Pie crust for two 12-inch crusts; homemade, with lard and butter is the best, but you can also use store-bought

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. You can make this recipe as two regular-sized pies but I find that people really like to have their own individual pies (they stay together better, plus they’re so darn cute). Divide the pie crust into 24 balls and roll them out so they’re the size of a small tortilla. Don’t worry if the edges are rough and messy. Drape and tuck these into two muffin tins to make two dozen mini pie crusts. Prick the bottoms three times with a fork, and put them in the oven until they’re golden brown.

Meanwhile, heat a large saucepan of water on high. When it’s boiling, drop the tomatoes in for 10 seconds, just long enough to split the skins. Set aside, and when cool enough, peel and very coarsely chop.

Divide the tomato mixture between the baked pie crusts, and top each with green onions and basil. Combine the mayonnaise and cheese and spread on top of each pie (it should be level with the top of the muffin tin). Salt and pepper to taste. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool slightly to set. Run a knife around the outsides and gently lift out. Serve immediately, or the next morning, cold, for breakfast. Makes two dozen mini-pies or two regular pies.

Adapted from a beautiful cookbook we grew up cooking out of from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Hollyhocks and Radishes.

On this bittersweet morning—I just walked by the Grammy Museum where the staff was placing a memoriam outside and preparing for big crowds—the show must go on, and we’ll all do our best to make Michael proud (one look at Neverland Ranch would confirm he was an avid fan of home design). After writing over at Dwell.com about many of the speakers, exhibitions and events for the last six weeks or so, I’ll be liveblogging the Dwell on Design conference at Dwell.com today. If you’re here, come say hi. We can reminisce about our favorite Michael Jackson song.

Gelatobaby meets Coolhaus from Alissa Walker on Vimeo.

The kinds of stories that people tend to pass along to me fall into three basic categories. If you were to judge me simply by what links my friends fed me in the last few days, you’d have the following: Photos of the just-opened High Line park, a wordplay game called Tom Swifties, a guide to New York gelaterias, and the Ben & Jerry’s ads supporting same-sex marriage.

Your assumptions are correct: I love things that look cool, sound cool, taste cool, and are illegal in some states.

On a scorching May afternoon when I was not only reading about cool things but also trying to keep cool by working in the coolest room in the house, with my face pressed to the cool hardwood floor, I received a link from my friend Sarah Rich, an editor at Dwell: Architecturally-significant ice cream sandwiches with flavors named things like Frank Behry and Neutrapolitan. I leapt from my sweaty pool on the floor and rejoiced! It was a trifecta.

Not only did the ladies who owned this hot pink-and-silver truck slapped with magnetic headshots of architects love ice cream and design as much as I, they had paired it beautifully with wordplay. If we we didn’t end up being best friends, we certainly would make great nemeses.

But things went smoothly from there, as ice cream-related friendships often do. And a few weeks ago, atop the funny lump of a hill that holds the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Hollyhock House, as the sun barely set over a gloomy Los Angeles, as intrepid drinkers clinked rosés plucked by Silverlake Wine, Gelatobaby met Coolhaus. All archi-puns aside, Natasha Case and Freya Estreller have the foundations down for a good sandwich: built-to-order, on soft cookies, with the option of an edible rice paper wrapper. It was love at first Mintimalism bite. I also somehow walked away from this meeting with a free six-pack of toilet paper. Which was good, because we were running out.

But this frozen fairy tale does not end there, my friends. Thanks to my fellow friend-of-cold Sarah Rich, and the folks at Dwell, this encounter quiescently ripened into a full-fledged quest to discover the next master of architecture, ice cream and wit. If you, like me, felt the puns welling up from deep within your inner vat of design knowledge, then you, too, can churn out Coolhaus’ next architecturally-significant flavor over at Dwell’s Sweetest Contest Ever.

For the contest winner, there are just desserts. Coolhaus will be serving the best-named sandwich at Dwell on Design‘s A Night at the Movies on June 27, the same night you’ll get to see a film by Eric Bricker—who I interviewed for Dwell, and who actually went to my same high school, go Longhorns!—about the most important architectural photographer on the planet, Julius Shulman. Of course, I’m not eligible to win, but I’d like to hope that someone out there has already submitted the most appropriate one: Orange Julius Shulman. Orange sherbet between two fluffy vanilla cookies, served on a contact sheet.

Until then, I encourage you to spread the word about the wonders of Coolhaus as well as this rather delicious parlour game. If you need any licks of inspiration, they’re only a Tweet away.