Delawie's new San Diego office embodies the design principles they strive to achieve through their work, drawing from their experience in designing high-performance work spaces for corporate, higher education and life science clients.
The firm moved from their office in Little Italy, where they had been for fifteen years, to a highly visible site in the burgeoning Bay Park area. The site housed an existing early 1960’s one-story concrete block building and a 2-story wood-framed building added in 1985. Both structures were intentionally exposed, revealing and celebrating their unique histories, from 30-year-old steel beams and concrete blocks, to ceiling tresses and flawed industrial flooring.
There is no hierarchical design for the placement of personnel, instead, designers are grouped together based upon their current project teaming. Common areas are incorporated to encourage employees’ social pursuits, including a kitchen, a large open space for lunch seminars and firm-wide meetings, and a complete locker room with showers. An outdoor deck extends the work space environment outdoors and accommodates many a happy hour.
The office exhibits a variety of materials, furniture, finishes and details. The red color and pinwheel emblem in the firm’s logo is evident from the guest entry sequence, to the lobby and the workstation dividers.
The building employs such green strategies as skylights, LED lighting, operable windows for natural ventilation, and drought tolerant landscape material. The project is seeking LEED Gold certification, and the addition of a rooftop photovoltaic power station will offset 50% of the building’s energy costs.
Photography by Stephen Whalen.
View Original