From Echo Park to Frogtown to Lincoln
Heights, a fresh crop of creative talents—
many of them friends and collaborators—
are writing the next chapter in California
design. Meet eight trailblazers at the
epicenter of L.A.’s new cultural hot zone.
Waka Waka
Like Albert Frey, the Eameses, and other leading West Coast
lights before him, Shin Okuda, aka Waka Waka, has found a
material muse in simple plywood, crafting sculptural seating,
shelving, and site-specific installations. “Birch plywood is
very generic, like white paper, so the design speaks more than
the material,” says Okuda (pictured in his Frogtown studio),
whose bespoke creations are cropping up coast to coast—
from L.A.’s Owl Bureau bookstore to New York’s Forty Five Ten
boutique. Now he’s branching out into metalwork, with more
departures, among them an Adidas collaboration, on the
horizon. wakawaka.world