LA’s transition from one-industry town to arts-to-tech creative hub is attracting an influx of hubs-within-hubs. And London-based operations are leading the charge. Not surprisingly Soho House already has two LA outposts with another in the works for downtown. Spring Place opened in Beverly Hills last year and is also planning an opening downtown. Co-working operation Second Home, which now runs four sites in London after recent openings in Clerkenwell and London Fields, arrives in LA this September.
Second Home has chosen still sketchy East Hollywood as its entry point with architects SelgasCano on design duties – the team behind three London locations and the Lisbon location. The architects are transforming the historic Anne Banning Community House. And as a teaser Second Home has shipped out and installed the Madrid-based practice’s 2015 Serpentine Pavillion at La Brea Tar Pits.
Over the next six months the pavilion – 866 sq ft of interlocking organic chambers and tunnels in translucent coloured fabric – will host a programme of art, music and talks including events with filmmaker David Lynch, Netflix and the World Wildlife Fund, and charities such as the American Youth Symphony and Inner City Arts. The installation is a collaboration with the National History Museums of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC) – La Brea Tar Pits is the only active urban Ice Age excavation site in the world and saber-toothed cats, giant sloths, dire wolves, mammoths, and mastodons have all been found on the site and displayed at George C. Page Museum.
RELATED STORY
Sam Aldenton, who co-founded Second Home with Rohan Silva in 2014 (see our interview in W*229), says the pair have fallen in love with the ‘contradictions, sub-cultures and people’ of the city and call the installation their ‘Love letter to LA’.
When it opens, Second Home LA will include 90,000 sq ft of co-working space, as well as a 200-seat event space, recording studio, restaurant and a branch of the Libreria bookshop. Second Home’s sites are more porous than most co-working operations and members clubs and the events space and restaurant will be open to the public and local charities and neighbourhood groups will be able to use meeting rooms for free.
The campus-style development is made up of 60 single-storey oval-shaped studios wrapped in translucent acrylic with ‘lily-pad’ like roofs, all set in a lush new garden and designed to house 250 organisations.
NHMLAC meanwhile recently announced plans to ‘re-imagine and renovate’ its 12-acre campus in Hancock Park, which includes La Brea Tar Pits and the George C. Page Museum. A competition to develop a masterplan for the site is down to three practices, including Diller, Scofidio + Renfro.
INFORMATION
ADDRESS
La Brea Tar Pits
5801 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles
CA 90036
US
-
Meet Malak Mattar, the Palestinian artist behind the 'Together for Palestine' concert at London's Wembley ArenaThe London-based artist curates a landmark concert of music and art in support of Gaza, alongside Brian Eno, James Blake, Jamie xx, Neneh Cherry and more
-
A new coffee table book proves that one designer’s trash is another’s treasureThe Rizzoli tome, launching today (16 September 2025), delves into the philosophy and process of Retrouvius, a design studio reclaiming salvaged materials in weird and wonderful ways
-
A carbon-emission-busting house, yeast-biomass building, and more ‘Designs for a Cooler Planet’‘Designs for a Cooler Planet’ returns to Aalto University in Finland as part of the annual Helsinki design and architecture week, highlighting buildings, materials and solutions towards a better future
-
Herzog & de Meuron and Piet Oudolf unveil Calder Gardens in PhiladelphiaThe new cultural landmark presents Alexander Calder’s work in dialogue with nature and architecture, alongside the release of Jacques Herzog’s 'Sketches & Notes'. Ellie Stathaki interviews Herzog about the project.
-
Slides, clouds and a box of presents: it’s the Dulwich Picture Gallery’s quirky new pavilionAt the Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London, ArtPlay Pavilion by Carmody Groarke and a rich Sculpture Garden open, fusing culture and fun for young audiences
-
Meet Studio Zewde, the Harlem practice that's creating landscapes 'rooted in cultural narratives, ecology and memory'Ahead of a string of prestigious project openings, we check in with firm founder Sara Zewde
-
The best of California desert architecture, from midcentury gems to mirrored dwellingsWhile architecture has long employed strategies to cool buildings in arid environments, California desert architecture developed its own distinct identity –giving rise, notably, to a wave of iconic midcentury designs
-
A restored Eichler home is a peerless piece of West Coast midcentury modernismWe explore an Eichler home, and Californian developer Joseph Eichler’s legacy of design, as a fine example of his progressive house-building programme hits the market
-
How LA's Terremoto brings 'historic architecture into its next era through revitalising the landscapes around them'Terremoto, the Los Angeles and San Francisco collective landscape architecture studio, shakes up the industry through openness and design passion
-
How architects are redefining disaster relief through designDisaster relief architecture is a critical component of humanitarian aid across the globe; read our ultimate guide on how architects can make a difference through design
-
Inside a Donald Wexler house so magical, its owner bought it twiceSo transfixed was Daniel Patrick Giles, founder of fragrance brand Perfumehead, he's even created a special scent devoted to it
