Executive Briefing

Architect Barbara Bestor on how home designs are changing in the era of coronavirus

And: An ode to the Erewhon beverage case.

Barbara Bestor
Photo: Ray Kachatorian. Courtesy Bestor Architecture.

Looking ahead to the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve reached a point where we know it probably won’t mark the end of modern civilization, but that it will cause lasting effects on how we live for years to come.

Over the next few months, I plan to interview designers from different fields to learn how their work has changed: How they’re building things for people whose needs and routines are suddenly different — and will be different for the foreseeable future — but probably not forever. Designing for what’s next.

For this first edition, I spoke with Barbara Bestor, an architect in Los Angeles whose “experimental modernist” residential work I started noticing on walks around the neighborhood, before learning that she also designed the Intelligentsia café in Silver Lake and headquarters for Beats By Dre and Snap.

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Dan Frommer

Hi, I’m Dan Frommer and this is The New Consumer, a publication about how and why people spend their time and money.

I’m a longtime tech and business journalist, and I’m excited to focus my attention on how technology continues to profoundly change how things are created, experienced, bought, and sold. The New Consumer is supported entirely by your membership — join now to receive my reporting, analysis, and commentary directly in your inbox, via my twice-weekly, member-exclusive newsletter. Thanks in advance.

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