Local designers launch Los Angeles Design Weekend

A "decentralized" group of designers are launching a furniture design-focused festival that will take place in the neighbourhoods of eastern Los Angeles.

Called Los Angeles Design Weekend, the inaugural event is set to take place from 21 to 23 June across a range of studios and showrooms in neighbourhoods in East Los Angeles and Downtown.

The move comes after the announcement that Los Angeles Design Festival, which was revived last year after a pandemic hiatus, would move to a biannual model.

"A group of us felt that LA was lacking a true celebration of all the wonderful independent designers and makers here," Holland Denvir, who is one of the lead organisers, told Dezeen.

Denvir is the owner of a creative agency in the area and has become one of the lead organisers of the event, which is being planned by a growing volunteer force.

The festival will be organised by neighbourhood, with each day clustered around a geographic core. Some of the neighbourhoods included will be Downtown Los Angeles, Silver Lake, Frog Town and Atwater.

Denvir said the itinerary has been planned to avoid the infamous traffic in Los Angeles so that participants can walk, take transit or cycle between the various activations, which will start at Denvir Enterprises showroom Downtown.

"It's decentralized," Denvir said. "However, we're being mindful about when and where the activations happen."

Several local design studios have already confirmed their participation in the festival including HubbaHubba, landscape studio Terremoto and ceramicist Daniel Dooreck.

According to Denvir, the event will focus attention on the growing design scene in the eastern part of the city, which often competes for events with Hollywood and the neighbourhoods in the western part of the city.

"Our goal is to make it digestible where you're excited to explore a very focused part of LA and then in the future, we will focus on a different part of town," said Denvir.

Beyond the showrooms and activations, the group behind the festival also hopes to have interactive elements as part of the programming.

"It's not just to see what the designers here are making," said Denvir. "It's also to get your hands dirty as a participant."

"We're also working with local design schools to engage the next generation of designers in this exciting celebration of all facets of eastside LA design," added Rachel Bullock, co-founder of furniture studio Laun, which is involved in planning the event.

"We've been floored by the overwhelming positive response and the engagement of the community thus far," Bullock continued. "There are so many brilliant creatives in this city and it's great to see the way people are coming together."

Other designers already involved with the event include installation artist Jihan Zencirli and interior designer Adi Goodrich.

The festival comes at a time of heightened attention to the Los Angeles design scene, with a number of galleries putting on shows this year to coincide with the city's art week and international collectible design fair Design Miami announcing a Los Angeles edition to take place in mid-May 2024.

Los Angeles Design Weekend will take place from 21-23 June. For more events, festivals and talks in architecture and design visit Dezeen Events Guide. 

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