The design of this 4,700-square-foot tenant improvement evolved from the unique challenge to remodel a 1963 Frank Gehry-designed commercial structure located in the heart of downtown Santa Monica. The client is a full-service post-production facility based in Chicago. It provides every aspect of the TV commercial making process, including creative on- and offline editing, film transfer, and special video and audio effects.
Like much of our work, this project is a continuation of ongoing research into materials and technologies as well as a reexamination of known conditions, accepted norms, and established methods. This research has led to an innovative solution and stimulating new way of approaching interior architecture. Without predefining architecture, we responded directly and intuitively to the material qualities of place. The context and program for the production studio suggest an experience ordered like a film or freeway, framing and containing reality. The design engages users, heightens their sense of awareness, and brings a deeper understanding and vitality to their experience.
The design examines the tension between materials, form, and experience. The interior can be viewed as “a skin or surface wrapper that moves in and out alternately concealing and revealing the building fabric.” The layering and sculpting of the newly formed surfaces weave together disparate and contrasting materials. Recalling film director Alfred Hitchcock’s interest in openings as metaphors, here, too, voids are as important as surfaces, revealing an earlier pattern of materials or use.
Of particular interest is the idea of transcending traditional craft and elevating humble materials without trying to make them into something other than what they really are. It is an attempt to find and reveal the extraordinary within the ordinary. The exploration encourages users to forge a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the fundamental, yet delicate, relationships that exist between themselves, the natural world, its vital resources, and our collective cultures.
Two basic materials—wood and plastic—have been transformed from benign surfaces into sculpted space. The 100-foot-long wood wall was created by a direct transfer method. Computer models were sent directly from the architect to a computerized CNC router, where 74 glue laminated beams of varying thickness were sculpted by direct automation, virtually eliminating the traditional handcraft. Several studio entry doors were integrated into the pattern of the wood and seamlessly disappear. The result is a surface that is spatial, has depth, and comes alive with movement.
In contrast to the carving method of the wood construction, ⅛-inch colored acrylic panels were layered to a thickness of 1 inch for the facades of the adjacent lead-lined offices. The panels are backlit from large skylights located within the interior of their respective offices and are transformed into a material of considerable spatial depth and color. The movement of light and people engages and activates the entire space, creating a quality of time and movement. Light is also used as an ordering device, drawing you into and through the space. It is a register of the passage of time as well as a social connector. As in the construction of the wood wall, the acrylic panels reveal the extraordinary within something very ordinary. 
