Newcomers from New York often ask the same question within a day of arriving in Los Angeles: where is everyone? The city runs on private routines. Residents build a short list of favorite places and reach them by car, one stop at a time, until something like los angeles design week gives them a reason to go somewhere new.
LA Design Week/end (LAD/W) is designed to pull people out of that routine. Holland Denvir co-founded the festival in 2024 with Meghan McNeer, who serves as creative director. The 2026 edition, its third, put more than 130 designers, studios, galleries, and brands across more than 15 neighborhoods. The festival website lists the dates as September 30 to October 4.
Visitors to los angeles design week who try to see everything will fail. The better approach is to pick a route and treat the festival like a branching story, where each choice opens a different afternoon. What follows is one such route.
Starting in Boyle Heights
The first stop was Small Green Door (SGD), a creative studio tucked into a cluster of warehouses on the only tree-lined street in Boyle Heights’ industrial zone. Denvir met visitors in the courtyard. Co-founder Leo Estévez then led a tour of the complex, which includes artist workspaces, an R&D kitchen, several galleries, and a bunker.
The group show “After the Tide,” curated by Nadia Khagani and Rose Zhang, gathered 19 artists and designers whose work responds to natural forces. Most pieces are ceramics, and many carry a gothic streak. A sonic water installation by Edge Sound Research anchored the room. Sand pedestals, made in the studio, held the work. Kimberly Meyer’s shallow clay bowls made the strongest case for the show’s theme. I kept picturing a bay scallop aguachile served in one of them.
Before leaving, Estévez handed each visitor a retro cassette case holding a set of mini zines. Each case also held a small green key, which the studio says opens the door to the space.
Lunch in Echo Park and a museum in Silver Lake
Lunch was at Henrietta in Echo Park, a brick storefront owned by Mark Lesser. The room serves sandwiches through the day and switches to California-style bistro dining after dark. A gourmet corner sells olive oil, chocolate bars, and wine. The radicchio salad, crowned with a mountain of shaved Parmesan, and the fried smashed potatoes stood out.
Denvir explained the purpose of the design festival over the meal. “We want LAD/W to be accessible to everyone,” they said. “Whether you’re in the design industry or not.”
Festivals like this one often reward curiosity about craft, and London offers a parallel. POOR Collective’s Trellick Tower Wool Rugs shows architecture reimagined as textiles.
How los angeles design week is organized
The format of los angeles design week reflects that goal. Rather than anchoring the event to a convention center or a single design district, organizers spread events across the city. Each day centers on one neighborhood or a cluster of them, and events sit close enough to walk, bike, scooter, or take the Metro between them.
Leaving the car at home in Los Angeles sounds unlikely, so I asked Denvir about it. “I want every moment you spend participating to be about discovery and connection, not sitting in your car in traffic,” they replied. “We can do that any other day of the week.”
After lunch, the group walked down the block to “Our Joy is Resistance” at Alabaster Gallery, hosted by Enzo.
Later, the Living Paul McCobb Museum opened its doors. Yogi Proctor, who is originally from Britain, came to the United States by way of skateboarding. He began by collecting one piece, and that habit became an archive. Today, he collects, conserves, and studies the 1950s Planner Group furniture of Paul McCobb, along with its accessory lines. Proctor’s wife, documentary filmmaker Carol Martori, joined the group that evening.
McCobb was one of the leading names in American-made furniture during the 1950s. The Manhattan-based designer was among the first to treat his signature as a brand. He stamped his work with a watermark at first, then switched to a foil mark, so buyers could identify it.
Proctor’s collection began in Chicago, where he first came across a McCobb piece. After 20 years of collecting, his midcentury house in Silver Lake, built in 1949 and remodeled in 2017, holds about a third of the collection.
The house is full of McCobb. Stacked on top of more McCobb, the rooms make it hard to find anything else. I tried to spot the non-McCobb objects, including a cat sculpture by the front entrance, a wall of books in the study, and anniversary cards on the nightstand.
The Contempri tableware in the living room stopped me. Its bright colors and sparse shapes look as fresh as they must have in 1957. That year, McCobb worked with porcelain makers in Japan on an early example of dishwasher-safe porcelain tableware, Proctor said. Living with the collection raises a practical problem: objects that are used wear out. I admitted I avoid using my own Wagenfeld Kubus glass jars for fear of chipping one. Proctor’s answer was that good design deserves to be used.
Proctor’s collecting habit shows how well-made design holds its value for decades. Carlo Nason’s 1969 Lotus Lamp Returns with Gubi revives a sculptural midcentury classic worth a closer look.
From there, the route continued to the Silver Lake Reservoir and the former home of Richard Neutra, now the Neutra VDL Studio and Residences. The house is a National Historic Landmark and operates as a house museum.
Inside, Yamaha Design Laboratory presented “Companionship.” The company’s in-house design division dates to 1963. The show asked visitors to think of instruments as objects that stay close through a lifetime. Ten design works and instruments were placed throughout the house.
Johnny Le, a multimedia artist and photographer, served as guest curator. His photographs, shot at Yamaha’s headquarters and piano factory in Japan, showed an exploded view of every part of a piano. Upstairs, two guitar stand-stools, built for living with an instrument, sat beside the TransAcoustic guitar, which can play music over Bluetooth.
The show also included the first public look at a prototype called “Dreaming of the Sea.” Made with Karimoku Case, the low chair produces wave-like sounds when a sitter moves on the cushion. Small metal balls inside roll and knock against each other, shifting the sound from crashing surf to soft ripples.
The visit ended on the roof, where Manabu Kawada’s “The Backrest for Sky Viewers” was installed. According to Yamaha Design Laboratory, leaning back on the wooden plank and looking up at the bright sky lets people believe in the beauty of the world.
Evenings at Haas Brothers and Ravenhill Studio
By evening, the group reached the studio of Haas Brothers. The building looks plain from the street. Inside, whimsical sculptures fill the fabrication shop where the pieces are made, and the mood changes quickly.
Food was part of the installation. Zehra Ahmed‘s displays were sculptural. Two serpentine sandwiches made with braided brioche stretched more than 10 feet across a suede-like tablecloth. The sandwiches were split and laced back together to form a runner, and the seams were hard to find. Dessert, a rectangular bed of sugar-dusted doughnut holes with three dipping sauces, felt less ambitious. The best find was on the back patio, where wood-fired pizzas and natural wines were served.
I missed “Los Angeles Sets a Table” at Ravenhill Studio, and I regret it. The show used two tables, one set for dawn and one for dusk, with contrasting palettes. Cathy Callahan first proposed the idea in 2019. It came together this year with curators Chelito Villaflor and Chris Albanese of Thought Forms Studio. The show celebrated gathering in person around objects made by hand.
The route I took through los angeles design week suggests that goal is achievable. It also showed that the city’s design scene depends on small rooms, handmade objects, and people who are willing to walk a few blocks to see them.
Sources & Links
Source: design-milk.com
Frequently asked questions
When does LA Design Week/end take place in 2026?
According to the festival website, the 2026 edition of LA Design Week/end runs from September 30 to October 4. It is the festival’s third edition.
Who founded LA Design Week/end and who is its creative director?
Holland Denvir co-founded the festival in 2024 with Meghan McNeer, who serves as creative director. Denvir is one of the festival’s founders.
How many designers and neighborhoods does LA Design Week/end include?
The 2026 edition featured more than 130 designers, studios, galleries, and brands across more than 15 neighborhoods. Events were spread throughout the city rather than held in one location.
Can you get between LA Design Week/end events without driving?
Yes, events are placed close enough to walk, bike, scooter, or take the Metro between them. Each day centers on one neighborhood or a cluster of nearby ones.
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