A space primarily for lounging and meeting, this 10,500 RSF amenity center focuses its energy on a less structured experience than its surrounding offices. Weaving its way from architecture down to furniture, that dissolving of rigidity draws its inspiration from the mid-century, the era when the building was erected.
The completed space encompasses a simple working mantra “Off the Grid” – a space for creative retreat from the structures of one’s daily experience. Spaces are divided less by solid walls and more by elements that could simultaneously define yet remain transparent. The traditional procession of enclosed rooms was supplanted by objects placed in a field – screens lightly anchored to floor and ceiling, built-in furniture, and changes in material or color.
We defined our “objects in a field” as each piece of more structured program – Reception, Bar, Lifestyle Lab, Salon, Billiards – and treated them as jewel boxes clad in walnut, a quintessential mid-century material. Each box was disengaged from the ceiling and given an uplit halo in order to further emphasize their “object-ness” and give a subtle call back to divider screens from that era. With the formal program placed within the field, the informal lounge areas naturally infilled the remaining negative space.
Each space was infused with the ethos, materiality, and spirit of leading 1960s designers and thinkers. Art was then layered in, with various local artists creating a body of work reminding us that the spirit of experimentation so present in the mid-century remains.