Venice Garden and Home Tour -this Saturday

Image from Venice Garden and Home Tour.  All Rights Reserved.

This weekend brings another installment of the annual Venice Garden and Home Tour.  Running from 10am to 5pm on Saturday, May 7th, the walking tour will feature over 30 gardens and homes throughout Venice for people to ogle and muse over.  Should be another interesting installment, especially with the continuing onslaught of contemporary homes being designed and built in Venice.  More on this year's tour is shown below, as well as some pictures from previous years:

This annual self-guided walking tour will feature 30 gardens and homes in the charming, secluded Walk Streets neighborhood and streets south of Venice Boulevard. The tour is a showcase of how architects, landscape designers, and homeowners have crafted gardens and homes to make lovely living oases. These private spaces, sequestered behind carved wooden doors, contemporary metal gates and imaginative fences, are open to the public this one day of every year when tour-goers can walk the streets, meet and enjoy the community, and be inspired by the inventive design, surprising spirit and whimsy that is uniquely Venice.

The Walk Streets through tranquil neighborhoods where the homes face one another are actually pedestrian paths that bring people together. When Venice was being developed, workers lived in modest bungalows that later became summer beach homes for Angelinos; many of the remaining old bungalows are reworked now to meet today’s standards and tastes, and sit side by side sleek contemporary cubes. Local architects Barbara Bestor, Tom Carson, Talbot McLanahan, Tim Petersen and Robert Thibodeau, along with local landscape designers such as Jay Griffith, Pamela Burton, Naomi Sanders and Di Zock, have influenced the constantly evolving development of these distinctive neighborhoods.

The gardens and homes on this tour exemplify Venice's creative energy: the homeowner’s love of living inside or outside with nature, the use of lanterns and crystal chandeliers found hanging from trees or cleverly placed antique neon signs and sculptures in just the right places to enhance gardens. In these rustic enclaves, rooftop gardens and solar panels pop up into the trees, and tiny vegetable gardens thrive next to shady children’s play yards.

Now in its 18th year, the Venice Garden and Home Tour is the much anticipated annual fundraising event that draws visitors from all over California. The tour gives financial support for NYA’s Las Doradas Children’s Center, a licensed child care facility that provides full-time, education-based child care to low-income working families.

Image from Venice Garden and Home Tour.  All Rights Reserved.

Image from Venice Garden and Home Tour.  All Rights Reserved.

Gas Station or Stealth Bomber?

This is easily my favorite gas station in all of Los Angeles, and let's be honest, there are a lot of them.  Located at Robertson and Olympic, this gas station takes filling up to another level.  I can't tell if it is an ode to Frank Gehry, the Stealth Bomber, or America's obsession with stainless steel appliances, but its kitschy, unique, kinda awesome, and I love it. 

Modular Herb Garden Wall

(images from Sunset Magazine.  All Rights Reserved)

I stumbled on this the other day in Google images.  This creative wall in Laguna Beach is a simple, but great idea that provides privacy for the homeowners through modular and adjustable container plantings.  Not only can you easily change out your plants, but also adjust the design by shifting the boxes around.

Scout Regalia

 (image of Outdoor Table Set from Scout Regalia. All Rights Reserved.)

The LA Times highlighted the Echo Park based design group Scout Regalia this past week.  In the designer's own words:

Scout Regalia is a Los Angeles based, multitasking design practice obsessed with the design and fabrication of space, furniture, home products, graphic identities, material processes, and sustainable living. Established in 2006 with Benjamin Luddy and Makoto Mizutani, the design studio is dedicated to supporting local fabricators, and aspires to embody innovation, discipline, and inquisitiveness in all the work that is produced. Embracing both the unassuming and ornamental aspects of design, Scout Regalia celebrates the inherent design of everyday living.

As if I wasn't already sold, among their many design interests are some cool outdoor furniture elements including an Outdoor Table Set and Patio Garden.

Image of Scout Regalia's Patio Garden. All Rights Reserved.

A little humor from Unhappy Hipsters

"The things that once so defined him — shag carpeting, Room & Board sofas, monogamy — now suffocated him."
(image from Dwell, September 2009)

Need a little smile amidst the ennui of your stunningly designed, ultra hip, modern lives? Enjoy the oft ridiculous, always chic, architectural eye candy from Dwell through the lens of the wry wit at Unhappy Hipsters.