Workplace Confidential: An Inside Look at Design Offices Across LA

Great design offices stand out. Reflecting a firm’s character and process, these spaces serve as a framework for building new ideas. While they may be housed within simple, rectilinear forms, design studios are organized to support analysis and encourage creative ideation. Few cities represent the diversity of design offices like Los Angeles. As a place where progressive forms and spatial multiplicity coexist, the City of Angels is filled with widely different studio designs and layouts. Though they can be hermetic in nature, these projects provide room for experimentation and promote critical engagement.

Building off our two recent articles that examined multi-unit housing and residential projects, the following collection explores office designs across Los Angeles. Built specifically for architects, designers and engineers, these projects are formed as creative workplaces. From model-making spaces and varied height workstations to collaboration rooms, the projects were created to showcase design. Each were made with forms and programs that reveal company culture while reimagining ways of working. Join us as we take an inside look at some of LA’s most dynamic design offices.

Arup Downtown Satellite Office by Zago Architecture, Los Angeles, Calif., United States

Located in downtown Los Angeles, Arup’s office follows the activity-based working model with workshop rooms, casual lounges and informal collaboration areas. Designed to signal the company’s progressive spirit, the new workplace combines multi-height desk surfaces with erasable wall surfaces and non-territorial work spaces.

Net-Zero Office by Morphosis, Culver City, Calif., United States

Morphosis’s new office was designed as one of the largest net-zero buildings in Los Angeles. Created with a 2,800-square-foot solar array, the project features wind catchers, acrylic and galvanized steel shades, as well as 16 square skylights lined with acrylic diffusers.

SmithGroupJJR Los Angeles Office by SmithGroupJJR, Los Angeles, Calif., United States

Created to unify multiple practice areas, SmithGroupJJR’s Los Angeles studio showcases the company’s workplace strategies while respecting the firm’s culture and values. Multi-purpose spaces combine with work areas to form diverse spaces for creativity and exchange.

Lehrer Architects Office by LEHRER ARCHITECTS LA, Los Angeles, Calif., United States

The office of Lehrer Architects stands as a 5,400-square-foot warehouse with multiple interventions throughout. As a generic working space, the design aimed to honor the rudiments of work with ample natural light, vast working surfaces and integrated connections to landscape.

20th St. Offices by Belzberg Architects, Santa Monica, Calif., United States

Housing creative working studios for three design firms, the 20th St. Offices are located in Santa Monica. Designed to showcase the latest green building initiatives and strategies, the project aimed to be a model for the community and neighborhoods alike.

Thornton Tomasetti Offices by Koning Eizenberg Architecture, Los Angeles, Calif., United States

Thornton Tomasetti’s offices in Los Angeles were remodeled to support a more collaborative working style. Created around informal opportunities for interaction and a nesting of group meeting areas, the project aimed to encapsulate what “good” structural engineering can offer clients.

Gensler LA by Gensler, Los Angeles, Calif., United States

Gensler’s Los Angeles office was created to embody the workplace of the future and the idea of a client design lab. Showcasing Gensler’s design services, the project provides space for various work modes to coexist.

The Hyperion Project by Oyler Wu Collaborative, Los Angeles, Calif., United States

The Hyperion Project features an ongoing series of interventions to an existing 1920’s residential duplex that includes the design office of Oyler Wu Collaborative. Designed with a private residence upstairs, the two-story volume includes an aluminum and recycled composite board fence, an installation made of rope and steel, and an aluminum entry canopy.