The Scout: What's new on Pico Boulevard

Here in the land of shopping malls and stacked garages, it's easy to get excited about an L.A. district where you can park on the street. And walk.

But that’s just one of many reasons why a day spent in Picfair Village is so enjoyable. Long known for auto body shops and hair salons, the stretch of Pico Boulevard between Fairfax and La Brea avenues now stands out for its eclectic — and growing — mix of stores and restaurants with sidewalk seating.

“When I came here, it was myself, Sky’s Tacos, Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles and CJs,” said Pinky Rose Charles, who opened her clothing boutique Pinky Rose nine years ago among the restaurants. “Melrose was so saturated I decided to move south.”

PHOTO GALLERY: Pico Boulevard shopping

The stretch of Pico Boulevard had long been predicted to be the next big shopping district, but the renaissance that Charles and others had hoped for was slow to transpire. Only in the last year have four design stores opened, all within a few blocks of one another. A new development, Pico Hauser Plaza, is slated to open this year.

The mix includes Pilates studios, the kosher and gluten-free Breakaway Bakery, an Eco Dog Wash, Mike's Bike and Skateboard Shop, and Cordially Invited, a stationery and gift store that also has a Southern Girl Desserts cupcake bar and ice cream by the scoop from Fosselman’s, the popular Alhambra parlor.

“There is an element of what is current right now in this neighborhood,” said Erin Adams, who opened Brainworks Home in May. Like many store owners, Adams lives in the neighborhood and augments her art consulting business in the back with her elegant storefront featuring vintage wallpaper, doorknobs, switch plates and other hardware, as well as decorative objects and rehabilitated mid-century furniture such as Marcel Breuer Wassily chairs.

Bow & Truss North Hollywood: Modern design, to go

Bow & Truss, the new North Hollywood restaurant and lounge crafted from what had been an auto body garage, may not sound like the kind of place with design elements that could translate to a residential environment. But as envisioned by Beth Holden, principal of the West Hollywood architecture studio New Theme, in collaboration with her client, Morgan Margolis of Knitting Factory Entertainment, the updated 1930s building will indeed hold some design solutions with high visual impact that diners just might bring home.

The restaurant, scheduled to have its grand opening Friday, has a stunning showpiece: a richly patterned bar that's actually just formaldehyde-free medium density fiberboard, or MDF, finished with paint that’s low in volatile organic compounds. The pattern, inspired by the jali screenwork common in Islamic design, was cut with a router by hand, then set on sanded plexiglass backed with dimmable LEDs. This particular pattern may be intricate, but the concept and simple materials could be deployed as an accent wall, adding ambient light to a stairwell or entryway. At Bow & Truss, the geometric cuts of the MDF are meant to blend with the restaurant's Spanish bent and with Southern California's architectural traditions.

"We studied different patterns and abstracted it to look a little more modern,” Holden said. “We wanted it to have that cross-referencing."

Summer style: Outdoor chairs that strike a chord

We're calling them airy chairs: outdoor seats whose wire or cord construction makes for an easy, breezy sensibility — the it look of summer, light in silhouette but not on style. We've chosen a sampling of chairs in a range of prices. Higher-end designs tend to have more refinements: Ligne Roset’s Fifty chair and ottoman, pictured here, has a steel frame that has been treated to protect against corrosion and lacquered in polyester so it’s cool to touch (no sear marks on thighs, thank you very much). Nearly 1,150 feet of UV-resistant polypropylene rope are strung into a cool silhouette that  cocoons you in comfort. The Ligne Roset chair retails for $1,435, the ottoman for $525, but we have some other picks that are as much a comfort to your wallet as they are to your back and feet.

Palisades house aims to make modern feel warm

Designer Jill Wolff narrates a pictorial tour of Vision House Los Angeles, a luxury demonstration home in Pacific Palisades, in this latest installment of Pro Portfolio. The occasional feature looks at a recently built, remodeled or redecorated home with commentary from the designer.

Project: Green demonstration home dubbed Vision House Los Angeles.

Interior designer: Jill Wolff, Jill Wolff Interior Design, Calabasas. Architects: KAA Design, Culver City, and P2 Design, Newport Beach. Builder: Structure Home in collaboration with Green Builder Media.

Designer's description: Normally, I work collaboratively with clients, but because this is a spec house, I had to imagine a family with a son about to leave for college and a younger daughter. I want people who view this house to come away with a feeling of surprise about its comfort, coziness and warmth. I want them to see that sustainable design really can be comfortable, and that if they’re clever, they can use their creativity to make their own home more sustainable.

Patio umbrellas for summer: We're seeing a pattern

Patio umbrellas are available in nearly every conceivable color, but what if you’re looking for a distinctive pattern or print? We scouted some of the newest designs on the market and found that whether your look is a bold stripe, a refined damask or modern Scandinavian graphics, these textiles can be less about shade and more about fun. Take a look:

Dwell on Design 2012: Modern fun this weekend

It's time to play: Dwell on Design, the annual expo of furniture, fixtures and finishes for the modern home and garden, is running this weekend at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Staff writer Lisa Boone and producer Dianne de Guzman walked the convention floor on Friday to get some early impressions.

They found Misha Tome sliding down the Cuba playhouse by Play Modern, above. The modular system consists of cubes that can be configured in different ways. Indoor models are made from Baltic birch plywood with a clear finish, and outdoor models are made from marine-grade plywood with a dark finish.

MORE PICKS: Dwell on Design 2012

Above right: Lori Erenberg, left, and Saehee Simmons looked at color samples for Kohler's new sinks in a range of bold hues.

Below right: The BeSpoke Creative console throws some curves, with a sleek white exterior complemented by maple and birch plywood interior.

Malibu modern: New house makes most of every inch, every view

You could admire the ocean view from the second-floor deck — coastal bluffs covered with wind-sculpted cypress trees to your right, pretty Point Dume off in the distance to your left, 10 miles of prime Malibu beach in between.

Or you could admire the architecture from the street below, looking up at a first floor that juts out from a cliff and hovers over nothingness.

Or you could contemplate the house from the front, where the weathered redwood siding turns out to be planks recycled from olive and pickle tanks.

You could do all of that, but then you might miss part of what makes this house special. This dream of a retreat — set along exclusive Broad Beach, among the mansions that Steven Spielberg, Robert Redford, Goldie Hawn and Steve Levitan have called home — holds smart design ideas that could translate to houses that are miles and miles away, in geography, budget or style.

PANORAMAS: Interactive 360-degree images from inside this house

After all, on paper this house is merely 1,700 square feet of living space: open kitchen and living room, powder room, small office and guest bedroom with bath on the first floor, master suite on the second. That's it.

But as conceived by the young Los Angeles firm W+D, this Malibu house plays out as a case study in the efficient use of space. Wedged next to noisy Pacific Coast Highway and set snugly between neighbors, the house also is inspiration for anyone trying to balance a love of the outdoors with the need for quiet and privacy.

Before and after: Old L.A. storybook house gets a sensitive makeover

When Christina Craemer's client bought what was listed as a "gentleman's hunting lodge," designed by architect Robert Byrd in 1950, the client inherited a rustic wood structure and a remodeling challenge. The house, with a steep-pitched roof and weathered redwood siding, was on a two-acre hillside just a few blocks above Hollywood Boulevard, but it reminded the owner, a producer and author, of childhood summers spent in the woods near a Minnesota lake. It was straight out of a storybook.

Craemer, owner of Arc54 Studio, an interior design and fine arts firm, wanted to respect the site and the lodge's original character while upgrading the home into a contemporary two-story residence.

"It was like a tree house among these amazing California oaks, redwood trees and sycamores," she said. "But since it was built close to the hillside, the interior was very dark. The challenge was to find a way to expand the structure, make it brighter -- and retain its character."

Craemer gained more daylight for the once-gloomy living room by replacing a picture window with a custom, three-sided glass box measuring 10 feet by 6 feet, with a 24-inch-deep pop-out. Inside, the ceiling volume was pushed up to accommodate taller windows without altering the original roof proportions. Her client no longer has to hunch over to look outside at the stately sycamore tree in the front yard.

Rapson rocker reissued by Loll in recycled plastic

Toby Rapson, son of midcentury architect Ralph Rapson, was working to put his father's classic designs back into production when he bumped into Loll designer and Chief Executive Greg Benson, whose company specializes in furniture made of recycled plastic. The meeting prompted Rapson to rethink his father's rocking chair as an eco-friendly outdoor rocker made from material.

"It became a collaboration between us and Loll to translate the chairs Ralph Rapson drew [pictured at right], to a new innovative  project," Rapson-Inc. President Chris Reedy said.

Rapson-Inc. reissued the modern Rapid Rocker at the end of last year and partnered with retailer YLiving to reintroduce the Rapson Greenbelt line of chairs. The 1939 Greenbelt rocker, pictured on the left at the top of the post, is $1,845 and was originally designed for manufacturer Knoll.

Prototypes of the high-backed armless Rapson Rocker for Loll ($999), pictured at top right, and low-back Rapson lounge chair with arms ($1,099), pictured at the end of this post, were showcased last month at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York and will be on display at the Dwell on Design show in Los Angeles this weekend. As with all of Loll's designs, the pieces are made from 100% recycled plastic.

L.A. at Home photo gallery archive open for touring

Our home profiles are collectively meant to represent the here and now, whether that means side-by-side Schindler houses in Inglewood with a shared front yard for an improved sense of community, above, or an architect's Laurel Canyon retreat that delivers a wonderful sense of privacy. A Midcentury Modern residence remade with some Latin American flavor, or a traditional Craftsman bungalow built as a family DIY project. Eames, Wright, Lautner. Santa Monica, Hollywood Hills, Ojai, Joshua Tree. We've been there and covered that. You will find dozens of our most recent profiles in our archive, so check it out. And if you see a cool house with a great story, email us at home@latimes.com.

HOME TOURS: The L.A. at Home photo gallery archive

Photo: Joel Bell helps son James traverse the garden in front of twin houses by Modernist icon R.M. Schindler in Inglewood. Credit: Katie Falkenberg / For The Times