Ford’s Filling Station / L.A. Times Newsstand

Celebrity chef Ben Ford established Ford’s Filling Station in Culver City, where the gastropub became a cornerstone of the culinary scene from 2006 until its closing in 2014. The LAX design is founded in the original restaurant’s brand-driven ideals: handcrafted and earthy, straightforward yet sophisticated. Moving beyond the decorator-design approach for a design that is uncompromisingly contemporary, the material palette conveys organic warmth and closeness to the earth without defaulting to wood. Saddle-colored leather banquettes rest against olive-green penny round tile; rice paper-esque lights framed in shoji-like screens add an undertone of Japanese sensibility; and the tactile copper bar wears with every touch, growing softer with age.

Every element is sized in relation to the concourse: the primary sign is precisely located with its dimensions maximized between lease-line and column-visibility parameters to create a recognizable iconic marker that draws travelers from the Terminal 5 entrance tunnel up the ramp to the entrance, located on the far end of the lease space.

Ford’s Filling Station shares this entrance with the L.A. Times Newsstand, which takes the same cascaded-scale approach: different logos — one large, another sideways — sign the newsstand for clarity and legibility at every distance. The newsstand also features a touchscreen feed to the L.A. Times website, one of the first locations at LAX to utilize this technology.