The Electric Mini Now things get interesting: BMW, the corporate parent of Mini Cooper, has announced that an all-electric version of the Mini ...
Referendum on High Speed Rail In these tumultuous economic times, California voters will soon have a chance to drop a cool $9.95 billion on a high-speed rail...
Green Prefab at a (Relatively) Bargain Price The New York Times recently picked up on the story of Thomas Small and Joanna Brody's Culver City, California, house designed by...
Gone, Baby Gone A few weeks ago, I wrote about the impending demise of the little car repair shop on a busy corner in my Los Angeles neighborhood...
Dutch Design Week If you find yourself in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, next week—or even Belgium, Denmark, or northern Germany—hie thee to Dutch...
In the Future, We Will All Drive Pacmen For the ultimate in zero-emissions driving, forget hydrogen and embrace air: Compressed-air cars are real, and the French company...
Urban Sprawl, Squared The Places We Live is a new book of extraordinary photographs by Norwegian photographer Jonas Bendiksen, documenting the teeming...
Look to the Lustron As MoMA's “Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling” comes to a close (on Oct.
Smog-Cutting Concrete The new Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis includes two 30-foot-tall sculptures made of photocatalytic concrete.
Dodger Stadium, Modern Classic Now that the Los Angeles Dodgers have advanced to the next round of the baseball playoffs, it's a good time to consider the...
Cityracks Finalists Announced The 10 finalists in New York's CityRacks Design Competition have been announced—and more importantly, prototypes of their designs...
The People's Design Award As part of their National Design Week festivities (Oct.
Last Chance for Lautner Though academics have dubbed him "an architect's architect," my humble opinion is that John Lautner is an architect who can be...
New LACMA Building This week, another piece in the ongoing expansion/renovation of the formerly dated and dreary Los Angeles County Museum of Art...
Look Ma, No Burnt Hands As a parent, I'm always on the lookout for innovative and stylish ways not to break my kid.
Cardboard Chic As news of the Greatest Financial Crisis Since the Great Depression sinks in, it's a good time to be reminded that things could...
Color Test You read Dwell. You like to think that you have a good eye for design. But how good is your eye really?
Art Deco Saved (For Now) Who says you can't fight City Hall? In my Los Angeles neighborhood of Silver Lake, a 1936 Streamline Moderne gas station was...
Upside-Down Houses Upside-down houses have been on my mind lately.
New York's New Face "Most architecture in any age is crap, and today’s crap isn’t as bad as yesterday’s." That's a juicy pull-quote from "The Glass...
New Honda Hybrid The 2010 car model year (which starts in calendar year 2009) promises to be an exciting one, with the debut of a revamped Toyota...
Let's Get Small This week I'm staying in Sebastopol, California, home of the Tiny Tumbleweed House Co, recently featured in a New York Times...
City Bike The Eurobike trade show just ended, and among the offerings at the world's largest bike-geek festival was Cannondale's Hooligan.
No Way Out The fun-house signage in the parking garage of the Eureka Tower in Melbourne, Australia is the brainchild of German graphic...
Sporting Stairway While surfing around, I found this intriguing use of sports-arena flooring as a residential wall material in a house in progress...
Miele Self-Opening Dishwasher Miele's new La Perla series dishwashers (available in late fall 2008) have an automatic door opening and closing system that aids...
Prefab Killers? As Hurricane Gustav approaches the Gulf Coast, this may be an opportune time to recall that Lowe's is selling Katrina Cottages.
Byrne Bike Racks Now that the finalists have been announced for New York's CityRacks design competition, judge David Byrne gets to taste the big...
Modern Motors This year's Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance car show featured a roll-out of General Motors' spectacular Motorama cars of the...
Turrell Skyspace Opens If you ever wondered where architecture and art intersect, look no further than one of James Turrell's "skyspace" installations.
London at Night Jason Hawkes's aerial photos of London at night make an old city look new again.