Representatives from Lettuce Avenue Design were able to successfully infiltrate the huge Dwell on Design extravaganza at the Los Angeles Convention Center this weekend. Billed as “America’s Largest Design Event,” it ran from 21-23 June 2013. The energy was palpable, and the logistics ran smoothly, aside from the fact there was only one place to buy coffee and the queue there (let’s call it “Mooncoins”) almost always numbered above twenty. The event’s most interesting feature may have been the breadth of contrasts, both literal and figurative, found in the Show Floor hall. Here we highlight two sets:

Emeco in contrast to the Furniture Society.

On the one hand, the Emeco exhibit displayed beautiful chairs, representing their ethos of the finest product, built to last, trusting in simplicity. On the other hand, around the corner could be found the chairs of the Furniture Society, also beautiful, perhaps impossibly so, some with little signs on them, warning “do not sit.”

Design as Solution versus Design as Problem.

Dan Formosa, of Smart Design, spoke on the potential for design to make the world a better place and identified some of the current impediments to that, including gender bias, and some of the current untapped opportunities, including gender differences. Looking across the Show Floor at the range of products, companies, and philosophies, the accessibility and sustainability movements within design are encouraging; but, with furniture prices on average containing at least four digits in front of the decimal point, the prevailing reality is captured in this remark overheard in passing somewhere in the Show Floor hall: “They ought to call it ‘Design Not Within Reach.’”

Lettuce Avenue Design will remain on the case.