Gobbling up acres of California farmland to create a master-planned community may meet a need for homes for purchase, but is viewed by many today as an anachronistic and unsustainable form of development in a region with unpredictable access to water and elevated heat.

So when photographers Ryan McIntosh and Yogan Muller learned of the advent of Tracy Hills, 4,700 new homes in the Central Valley, they set about documenting the metamorphosis of the site, from 2021 to 2024, from grazing land to graded terrain, and then the addition of concrete, asphalt, and the rise of tract homes. Then came a wildfire, sweeping through the area around Tracy Hills, so they returned to capture its aftermath. 

Now their collaboration is the subject of a new book, Tracy Hills, and an exhibition, Matter Out of Place: Tracy Hills, curated by Monique Birault, on show in the Bestor Architecture Gallery in Silver Lake.

It opens this Saturday and is then open by appointment. Email: monibiz007@gmail.com.

double page spread from Tracy Hills,photographed by Ryan McIntosh and Yogan Muller

Roots of Cool: A Celebration of Trees and Shade in a Warming World
Through October 12th.
Descanso Gardens, 1418 Descanso Drive, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011 
+
Shade Zones Design Competition

Thank you, KCRW Communications Manager, Joey Ponticello, for drawing my attention to Roots of Cool, a show of artworks at the Descanso Gardens that enlightens viewers to the issue of “shade equity.” 

The curators Edith and Jolly de Guzman chose women artists, including Kim Abeles, Pascaline Doucin-Dahlke, and Chantée Benefield to evoke, often in simple, bold visual narratives, the civic and human impact of lack of trees or shade structures in Los Angeles.

Leslie K. Gray, creator of a drawing of a woman waiting in the scorching sun for a bus,  told the LA Times that she hoped to “highlight historical urban planning decisions that have left certain communities disproportionately vulnerable to heat, particularly women of color, who are prominent riders of L.A. public transportation.” Chantée Benefield created a lovely installation of shade-giving umbrellas floating over the gardens.

Catch this show before it closes on October 12th.

Meanwhile, if you are a design student and want to join in the effort to provide more shade, enter the Shade Zones design competition, sponsored by USC Architecture School and members of the Shade LA coalition. Registration closes on October 15th. Or simply take the "Shade LA pledge." Read all about both in this recent newsletter.

Robin Lasser, Postcards to a Cooler Future (1), 2025, Courtesy Descanso Gardens 

LARA Launch Party
Saturday, October 4th, 5:00 PM; readings start at 7:00 PM
Ravenhill Studio, 2122 Cypress Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90065 

Just when you thought architectural print media was dead, up pops evidence of its revival. Take the recent appearance of the new magazines, The Panafold and Untapped, and, now in a second outing, LA’s spin on the New York Review of Architecture, LARA.

At a launch party this Saturday, at the studio of Brendan Ravenhill, you can get hold of a copy and meet contributors and editors (Mimi Zeiger and Shane Reiner-Roth).

Expect slight modifications to the first edition — the ubiquitous cartoon rat of #1 seems to have been eaten by a coyote, which now serves as LARA's spirit animal. Again, you'll find a smorgasbord of illustrators and writers, offering opinionated takes on topics including “Carusoesque urbanism, venture-capitalized car washes, the Tesla Diner (below), and the case for a centralized rebuilding authority.”  Interesting.

Click here for tickets.

Tesla Diner lands on Hollywood Boulevard. Photo by Frances Anderton

Chicano Urban Design: tour with James Rojas
Saturday, October 11th, 10:30 AM–2:00 PM
Starts at: Mariachi Plaza, 1831 1st Street, Los Angeles, CA 90033

Since community planner James Rojas wrote a fascinating MIT Thesis, The Enacted Environment--the creation of "place" by Mexicans and Mexican Americans in East Los Angeles, examining how Boyle Heights residents made use of their front yards and public spaces, he has been educating us about "Latino Urbanism."

Get a taste of what that looks like when he leads a tour next weekend of the "vibrant world of Chicano urban design."

Click here to RSVP for this free event. 

Pan American Bank building in East Los Angeles, 1965. Photo courtesy James Rojas.

Jazz and Gin at the Henry O. Bollman House
Saturday, October 18th, 4:00–7:00 PM
Hollywood; address shared on ticket purchase.

You may be familiar with the cinematic John Sowden residence in Los Feliz, built in 1927 by Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr, aka Lloyd Wright, famed for its concrete textile blocks and Mayan Revival styling. But how about the Henry O. Bollman house, built in 1923 in nearby Hollywood?

This two-story home for an adventurous developer is thought to be Wright’s first house in which he used the experimental textile, or “knit-block” system he developed, which ties together concrete blocks with steel bars.

You can get to tour the house and hear about its ongoing restoration when Friends of Residential Treasures Los Angeles (FORT: LA) holds its annual fundraiser later this month.

It comes served with the accouterments of the period it was built: jazz and gin.

Click here for tickets.

Henry O. Bollman residence. Photo by Tim Street-Porter, courtesy of Crosby Doe