Founded in 2013 and based in Los Angeles, California, All Def Digital is an urban youth culture, music, comedy, and media company founded by hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. The workforce includes writers, actors, musicians, and digital artists. With their cross-platform audience rapidly growing, All Def Digital was in need of a new headquarters in which to create original content for distribution through their own media properties, social channels, live events, and brand partnerships.
The space they selected is in the development core of downtown Los Angeles, across from the Staples Center and LA Live, and encompasses 25,000 square feet over two floors. The new scheme for All Def Digital’s space contains a workspace floor on the first level, which includes the executive offices and meeting rooms, as well as production and post-production facilities. The second level serves as the lab floor, housing the sound stages and workshops that support the production team, as well as an artist-in-residence workspace and gallery.
Their new space is located in an adaptive reuse project with deep floorplates, 13-foot-high ceilings, and windows at nearly the entire perimeter. The design team let the rawness of the building and its bones inform the subdivision of the space as well as the materials palette. The space is intentionally bare capturing the scrappy startup vibe of the company; ceilings and concrete floors were left relatively untouched. Offices and meeting rooms were inserted between columns and given glass fronts on which ideas and sketches are commonly drawn. Punctuations of color come in the form of accent furniture pieces, gallery walls of art from Russell Simmons’ own collection, and a giant mural painted by local street artist Blue the Great.
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