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Dear DNA readers,
I hope you’re doing well and are primed for America's 250th birthday — even if green trumps blue in the Reflecting Pool! I'm looking forward to my local July 4th Main Street parade, a mainstay in Santa Monica.
Meanwhile, I’m mourning — as are many — the passing of the architect Lorcan O’Herlihy. The Irish-born, LA-based O’Herlihy died on June 14th of a brain tumor, at 66 — an age, incidentally, when many architects are just hitting their stride, and Lorcan perhaps more than most.
I met Lorcan in the 1990s, when he was just getting his firm, Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects (LOHA), off the ground. He was a whirlwind of ideas and forward momentum and warmth (always one to pick up the phone and call when he had something on his mind). On his drawing board were houses such as the Vertical House in Venice, CA (2004) for himself and his wife Leila, with an ingenious checkerboard facade of charcoal cement board and colored glass.
 Vertical House, Venice, Image courtesy LOHA
All the while he was chewing on a building type that he foresaw would eclipse in relevance the single family home in Los Angeles: multifamily housing, which he went on to design for a range of income levels, in schemes that harnessed a painterly aesthetic and optimum livability, with flowing plans, natural light and airy personal outdoor spaces — along with public giveback through the imaginative incorporation of shared social space.
He manifested these principles in a chain of projects, undertaken with dedicated clients, including Formosa 1140 for developer Richard Loring (top of page), with a jaw-dropping façade made up of layers of windows and perforated red metal sheathing placed alongside a leafy pocket park for use by the entire neighborhood, resulting from a nifty deal with the City of West Hollywood. The urban designer for the City, the late John Chase, so loved the project he showed up at a planning meeting dressed head-to-toe in red and orange.
 Roof gardens atop Isla Intersections. Photo courtesy Gabor Ekecs/Holos Communities.
Lorcan built many low-income housing complexes, among them MLK 1101 and Isla Intersections, a supportive housing development built by nonprofit developer Holos Communities of shipping containers on public land beside the 105 and 110 freeway intersection, which incorporated a Paseo and gardens intended to serve as a “green lung" in a polluted area.
He also designed other building types — cultural buildings, bus stops, and workplaces — in LA, Detroit, and his beloved Ireland. But his housing work was profoundly significant in a region that has long been conflicted over growth and greater density.
 Mariposa 1038. Photo courtesy LOHA
Some years back, he and I toured Mariposa 1038, market-rate apartments in Koreatown with a photogenic concave, black/white exterior (above) and an oval courtyard that had attracted a community of young creatives.
He said then, “In the early years, the patrons of architects were people living on hillsides and hiring architects to design individual houses...I’m convinced that the new patrons… are intrigued about building multifamily or larger housing complexes in urban environments, infill projects, which is all throughout Los Angeles. So this building represents that new culture of Los Angeles.”
 Tenants of Mariposa 1038 greet Lorcan O'Herlihy, 2018. Photo by Frances Anderton
Catch my tribute to Lorcan on Madeleine Brand’s Press Play, check out his designs, books, and numerous plaudits on the firm’s website, and more on his social spaces in this NYT article and my book Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles.
David Hockney: "Life’s a killer"
I should add that this month, on June 11th, we lost another great talent who did much to shape perceptions of the Los Angeles cityscape: the painter David Hockney. I was smitten with his work from childhood, when my father gave me some postcard reproductions of his 1960s swimming pool paintings. They immortalized for us Brits — growing up in the gray damp -- the California dream, with surreal turquoise pools, sprinklers, manicured lawns, and art-collecting homeowners living in splendid isolation.
I had the good fortune to meet Hockney a decade ago in his studio. We talked about his first, thrilling impressions of Los Angeles, his lifelong compulsion to represent what he sees, and, memorably, his defense of smoking. After all, he pointed out, he outlived in years his nonsmoking father.
“It was chocolate biscuits that killed him," he declared, adding, "because he was a diabetic and he’d go walk up the street and go in the park and eat a whole packet of chocolate biscuits and go into a coma. And on the fourth coma he went into, he had a heart attack and died… and I say, well, everything’s a killer. Life’s a killer. We all get a lifetime. And there’s only now. So that’s why I smoke.”
 David Hockney, at L.A. Louver gallery, 2015. Photo by Frances Anderton
You can get the audio of that conversation here. Meanwhile, a new book, The Beverly Hills Housewife: Hockney’s Californian Muse and the World Beyond the Pool, will be published later this year. Art critic James Cahill explores in depth Hockney’s California, and one of the figures memorably captured in those 1960s paintings, the late Betty Freeman, the photographer and philanthropist.
Last thing before you jump to Design Things to Do, KCRW wants your thoughts on its newsletters. If you have 7 minutes to spare, we'd be so grateful if you could share your feedback on this Design and Architecture newsletter. Thank you!
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Design Things To Do
Top Pick: "America's Designer" in a Time Capsule
With luxury goods so dominant these days, it is very interesting to time-travel back to when an American furniture designer aimed his product squarely at the working class.
And that journey lands you in Silver Lake, in a house transformed by self-described "conceptual archaeologist" Yogi Proctor into a “living museum” of furnishings from the Planner Group series by industrial designer Paul McCobb. This was a novel furniture system for postwar Americans, who could buy shelving, tables, chairs, chests, cabinets and textiles in stages, according to their budget, adding up to an entire look.
McCobb, dubbed "America's Designer," described his Planner Group line as "contemporary," notes Proctor, distinct from the avowedly "modern," and more costly, designs of the Eameses or George Nelson.
Proctor, a welcoming host, came to California from the UK in the 1990s to pursue skateboarding, then graphic design. While living for a while in Chicago, he found a c.1953 iron leg bench table by McCobb, and this sent him down a collecting rabbit hole that has resulted in this impeccably staged time capsule that he shares with his wife, the documentary editor Carol Martori, and, by appointment, visitors.
Book a visit at paulmccobbmuseum.org.
 Yogi Proctor in his McCobb-filled living room. Photo by Frances Anderton
Quick Picks
This Wednesday, June 24th, from 6:00–9:00 PM, Marta in Silver Lake opens a dual exhibition of new work by Berkeley-based Rafi Ajl, maker of heirloom objects in wood, glass, and metal, and Bonnie Hvillum, whose Copenhagen-based Natural Material Studio “transforms natural and discarded resources into bespoke biomaterials, objects and environments that seamlessly merge functionality, artistry and circularity.” Nice.
 Image courtesy Marta
AI is moving so fast it is hard to keep up, but if you want to find out how interior designers and architects are putting it to creative use, without losing the human touch, come to the keynote talk, Understanding the Impacts of AI in Design, this Wednesday, June 24th, 10:00 AM, at the Pacific Design Center's Summer Market. I’ll moderate a conversation with Brian Pinkett (Landry Design Group), Mirko Wanders (Gensler), and Claudia Afshar (Claudia Afshar Design, below). Reception afterwards in JANUS et Cie.
 Silicon Valley House remodel. Image courtesy Claudia Afshar Design Inc.
Celebrity auctioneer Julien’s Auctions (Michael Jackson’s glove, Marilyn Monroe’s gown) is selling off a collection to appeal to fans of 1980s glam. At Bold Luxury: Boy George Edit, you can bid online and then live on July 14th, on items ranging from Boy George’s art, memorabilia, merch and a range of his fabulous outfits, including, below, the Customized “B-Rude” Red Fedora designed by bespoke hatmaker Philip Treacy.
 Image courtesy Julien's Auctions
If you are heading out to the desert, go check out Palm Springs Art Museum’s new exhibition, Alternative Palm Springs: Other Desert Architectures, opening to the public this Saturday, June 27th. This collection of models, drawings, photographs, archival materials, and objects “reveals a Palm Springs shaped not only by its celebrated landmarks, but also by projects that remained on the drawing board, countercultural communities, and LGBTQ+ residents who created worlds of their own.” Interesting! While there, catch Lake Verea: DarkRooms and Other Games (through September 13th, 2026), capturing Palm Springs landmarks in moonlight.
 Chrysalis, Chrysalis prototypes deployed in Joshua Tree, 1970, reproduction. Courtesy of Chrysalis Corporation.
For several summers, the nonprofit Materials and Applications has explored materials in an installation at Craft Contemporary. This year’s is Earthen Comforts: Airing Earth, created by a team led by Liz Gálvez (Office e.g.) that models passive cooling in a hand-built structure (below) in which “earthen thermal mass columns anchor the site, paired with a lightweight, woven canopy that modulates shade, air movement, and light.” Inside is tierra, the museum’s 4th Clay Biennial, and you can meet Maker-In-Residence Jackie Amézquita as she works this Friday, June 26th, and most Fridays through the summer.
 Earthen Comforts installation. Photo by Frances Anderton
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