Every year, Dwell, a magazine company dedicated to modern architecture and design, hosts a convention entitled "Dwell On Design" to showcase all that the magazine stands for. Whether it be sustainable architecture and consumer products, or designers of pre-fabricated houses, there is definitely something for everyone to see. This has been the third year of visiting the Los Angeles Convention Center for this event and every year I go, Dwell continues to awe me.
A custom furniture and lighting designer showed me the new OLED technology that is currently being developed by Philips. Instead of individual LED bulbs, there is a surface conductor sheet that illuminates completely. So imagine the entire surface area of a thin slice of paper being illuminated. This is definitely the next gen of lighting technology. From the pictures below you can see how he designed a pendant chandelier using only this technology. It was 5 Grand! Yes, the technology is expensive, however, so were cellphones, now everyone has one, this will definitely be everyone's household at some point in the future.
They even had a couple of food truck vendors post up inside the convention. Destiny and I really enjoyed the coolHaus ice cream desserts. We're typically not dessert fans, however, their Dirty Mint Chip ice cream was seriously crack in a cup. According to their website, the Dirty Mint Chip is:
Fresh mint infused ice cream with semisweet chocolate chips and a hint of brown sugar (no mint extract or flavoring used);
I seldom eat a whole cup of sweet ice cream that was not sorbet, but this was the exception. They offer this ice cream at Whole Foods and I will be stocking this shortly in my fridge for all my guests to try.
We stumbled upon a fascinating "social experiment" started by Paper Punk. It was an interesting collaboration between all of the attenders of the event. We all basically worked together to create a paper sticker metropolis, I can't explain why I found this cool, but folding and designing a piece of "architecture" in this city was amusing and meditative.
We finished the night in LA at The Stinking Rose in North Los Angeles, where their motto is:
"We Sprinkle Our Garlic With Food"
I always love the ambiance here, the service is superb, the decor is quirky, and the food is "flavorful" to say the least. Destiny got the Black Linguini with seafood (mussels, shrimp, calamari, crab and salmon. It is one of the best dishes here, I highly recommend it. I had the Garlic Filet Mignon with their amazing Garlic mash potato side and creamy garlic spinach.
Each table comes with their own Extra Virgin Garlic Olive Oil and when paired with their complimentary garlic roll, it feels like Christmas on my tastebuds.
I always <3 LA adventures.
