9350 Civic Center Drive
Beverly Hills, Calif.
Barton Myers Associates, Inc.

Making an old warehouse a hip office building by bringing light inside and putting cars on top

© Tim Griffith

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

By Thomas S. Hines

The chosen scenario for turning this obsolete warehouse into an office building was a major remodeling and enlargement of the old warehouse. But this raised the formidable problem of on-site parking. Excavation under the existing building would be difficult and expensive, while ground-floor parking with offices above would be unsightly and preclude the tenants having visual and physical access to the street. The solution that made the option viable was to use the roof of the two-level building for open-air parking in the tradition of Los Angeles automobile showrooms. The Myers proposal proved to be a unique, cost-saving answer. New steel bracing supports this rooftop parking and seismically reinforces the 39,000-square-foot structure.

As reconstituted, the major work space occupies the western half of the old warehouse and is capped by a handsome wood bowstring vault, a remnant of the older structure. A new L-shaped extension wraps around the renovated space and has a mezzanine that doubles available work space. Partially enclosed car ramps to the roof run through the eastern part of the original building. The view of the vaulted wood truss provides workers and visitors on the ground floor and mezzanine with a sense of texture and patina not usually found in the slick environments of most Hollywood production offices.

Consciously or unconsciously, clients and office workers have probably come to realize that this sophisticated integration of old and new offers a respite from the boredom of most urban offices, while the height of the vaulted space counters any feelings they might have of workplace claustrophobia. The sense of openness is enhanced by skylights on the roof, street-front walls of glass, large punched windows in the original brick west wall, and clerestory glazing. In contrast to the dominant textures of steel, glass, wood, and brick, workstations in the office areas are painted from a palette of warm green and salmon colors.

At the northwest corner of the complex, an opaquely glazed elevator-and-stair tower serves the mezzanine and rooftop parking areas. Seen from the street through the building’s glazed front, the sculptural richness of the old bowstring truss and the new steel frame helps connect the building to the old Ice House next door (now occupied by Madonna’s Maverick Records), which Myers also renovated.

See the June 2002 issue of Architectural Record for full coverage of this project.

Formal name of Project:
9350 Civic Center Drive

Location:
Beverly Hills, Calif.

Gross square footage:
40,000 sq. ft.

Owner:
Bank of America NA as Trustee www.bankofamerica.com

Architect:
Barton Myers Associates, Inc.
1025 Westwood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024-2902
310/ 208-2227
310/ 208-2207 fax