Mimi Zeiger

Los Angeles

Freelance Journalist at Freelance

Critic, editor, curator, and instigator. Bylines @metropolis @archpaper @dezeen Book review editor @landarchmag

Articles

Is embracing nature the key to a more fire-resilient Los Angeles?

3 weeks ago | wallpaper.com | Mimi Zeiger

'We are living in a new reality of extremes,' said California governor Gavin Newsom in a press release that accompanied a February executive order issued after the Eaton and Pacific Palisades fires that destroyed homes, businesses, and neighbourhoods across Los Angeles. The order, designed to harden communities against urban wildfires, introduced a statewide adoption of a 'Zone 0' approach around structures in fire-prone areas.
Los Angeles businesses and how they rebuild after the fires

2 months ago | wallpaper.com | Mimi Zeiger

Four months have passed since the Eaton and Palisades fires devastated Los Angeles neighbourhoods. In recent weeks, signs of repair and restoration are underway: FEMA workers clear sites, loading trucks full of concrete and steel debris, while charred oak trees show green signs of life. Many design-oriented groups are trying to chart the next steps for residential architecture.
PIN-UP | PLAY LAB

2 months ago | pinupmagazine.org | Mimi Zeiger

Architectural Entertainers PlayLab Celebrate 20 Years of Thinking Big by Mimi Zeiger Many of the remembrances of David Lynch published after his passing in January mentioned his gee-whiz, cherry-pie-and-coffee, Midwestern earnestness. The director always exuded uncanny sunshine in contrast to his penchant for noir. As a trait, earnestness rarely gets enough attention. More often than not, it’s overshadowed by hipness, camp, or irony. PlayLab is earnest.
LA Fires: how do we conserve precious buildings against natural disaster?

Mar 22, 2025 | wallpaper.com | Mimi Zeiger

How do we steward the past into the future? As a conservationist and director of the graduate programs in heritage conservation at USC School of Architecture, the question is often on the mind of Trudi Sandmeier. A few weeks after the fires in Los Angeles indiscriminately engulfed neighbourhoods in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, it’s become an important and regular refrain.
10 emerging Californian practices rethink architecture in the Golden State

Mar 3, 2025 | wallpaper.com | Jerome Byron |Ellie Stathaki |Mimi Zeiger

We highlight ten emerging Californian practices that are redrawing the borders of traditional architecture with their unique creative explorations. From Los Angeles to San Francisco, and with work spanning from building design to landscape and product; these are the studios that dream of a better future for their sunny State - and beyond.
Rebuilding LA: Altadena architects talk in after the fire

Feb 25, 2025 | wallpaper.com | Mimi Zeiger

'Constructing the built environment has to be rethought holistically, rethought in a very radical way,' says Heather Flood as she surveys the remains of what once was her Altadena, California home. All that’s left of the French Country, 2,000 sq ft residence is a Batchelder tile fireplace and brick chimney, a pile of collapsed stucco, and the burnt carcass of an overturned refrigerator.
La Cuadra: Luis Barragán’s Mexico modernist icon enters a new chapter

Feb 8, 2025 | wallpaper.com | Mimi Zeiger |Ellie Stathaki

Architect Fernando Romero has been shaping the future of Latin American architecture for two decades. His namesake firm (formerly FR-EE) and London-based Foster + Partners worked on a design for the New International Airport Mexico City; he crafted a gilded vision of Bitcoin City for the president of El Salvador; and he designed Museo Soumaya – the gleaming, dramatic museum named for both his wife and mother-in-law at the time, and commissioned by billionaire businessman Carlos Slim.
" America: I've given you all and now I'm nothing "

Dec 11, 2024 | dialnet.unirioja.es | Mimi Zeiger |Ann Lui

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Rome – Las Vegas: Bread and Circuses catalogs the geographic divide between the Nevada desert and the Italian capital

Oct 30, 2024 | archpaper.com | Mimi Zeiger

Rome – Las Vegas: Bread and Circuses | Photographs by Iwan Baan with contributions by Lindsay Harris, Izzy Kornblatt, and Ryan Scavnicky | Lars Müller Publishers | $53I have yet to make a pilgrimage to The Sphere, but I think about it more than I’d like to admit, searching for tickets to see Dead & Company under its dome of high-resolution screens or doling out Instagram likes to friends who road-tripped east on Interstate 15 in search of immersive communion.
How Can Designers Create Cultural Institutions that Serve Publics?

Jul 30, 2024 | gsd.harvard.edu | Mimi Zeiger |William Smith

Los Angeles’ Alameda Street cuts a north-south line through the city. Potholed by time, traffic, and freight trucks, the roadway stretches from Chinatown to the Port of Long Beach.