Design and Architecture

The deadline is this week for cities to bid to host Amazon's second headquarters, or HQ2. What can Seattle teach those cities about becoming Amazon's company town? And the late landscape architect Lawrence Halprin saw gardens through the lens of dance. Los Angeles right now is paying tribute to the visionary designer of modernist parks and plazas.

It's now up to the full, LA City Council to decide whether or not to add an additional fee on developers looking to build in the city. It's being called a “linkage fee” and the hope is that it will bring in as much as $90 million a year to help build more affordable housing. A council committee signed off on the idea this week.

You might think Hollywood and the NRA are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. But recent mass shootings have brought renewed focus to the glamorization of guns in the movies. And a music festival in Joshua Tree this weekend takes place in a setting known for its spiritual qualities as well as its architecture. We hear about the Institute of Mentalphysics.

Traffic in Southern California keeps getting worse. Elected officials have commissioned new light rail lines, additional bike paths, and have even added more freeway lanes. There’s also another concept they’re playing with: road diets. One community is fighting back.

Can designers of public space and event planners avert mass shootings, like the one that occurred Sunday night in Las Vegas? Pro-housing YIMBY activist Sonja Trauss runs for political office in San Francisco. And the long-planned Academy Museum comes into focus, with a Renzo Piano-designed sphere.

It's been a long time coming, and riddled with enough drama to fill a Hollywood movie. But today, the still-under construction Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Museum opened its doors for a close-up.