The sky is bright white. It’s 12:30 p.m. on a Sunday, and two dozen people are lined up in front of Courage Bagels on Virgil Avenue. Everyone is desperate for shade. Some foodies hold paper parasols to block the sun. Lucky diners, lox and schmear in hand, sit under frilly outdoor umbrellas. Half a block away, an unhoused person sprawls under a jacaranda.
I’m driving—AC blasting, terrier panting in the back seat—on the hunt for some recently deployed bus shelters designed by SOM with BMW’s Designworks and Studio One Eleven. The irony is not lost on me.
At the corner of Virgil and Sunset, I spy a seafoam green folly: an assembly of sliding planes with perforated steel Q*bert- block seats. It’s just one of the three thousand shelters promised by StreetsLA (an initiative of the Department of Public Works), which will roll out over the next decade. Modular and packed with amenities (lighting, digital displays giving arrival times and temperature, an emergency call box), SOM’s designs are stylish without being too cute. California modernism junkies might identify hints o…