Share this on

Going Geodesic

At the Los Angeles headquarters of Buck, Mass Architecture and Design built on the legacy of Buckminster Fuller

Kathryn Harris -- Interior Design, 5/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Almost a decade before Jeff Ellermeyer completed his first TV commercial, he bought a copy of Buckminster Fuller: Designing for Mobility. The visionary engineer's artist-meets-scientist persona fascinated Ellermeyer so much that he named his Web-design business after the carbon molecule fullerene. When he later got into TV production and animation, he named that Los Angeles company Buck—and paid homage to Fuller's 1940's geodesic dome by hiring Mass Architecture and Design to transform the top of a 1920's factory into a headquarters, via three geodesic main walls that slice through the 4,200-square-foot space. One of the walnut-veneered faceted forms sections off the studio itself, where the usual hush hovers over two dozen employees. (Mostly young men in jeans and T-shirts, hunkered down at computers.) A similar partition encloses offices for two partners and an executive producer, while the third closes off five additional office spaces.

The collaboration of Mass principal Ana Henton with Worldflower Garden Domes principal Ernie Aiken, a specialist in geodesic domes, was a six-month process of discovery. Aiken worked with 3-D AutoCAD modeling to design curving bands based on a sphere with a 50-foot diameter. The resulting modular system—custom aluminum hubs to connect off-the-shelf two-by-fours at atypical angles—arrived in huge packages that, when opened, resembled a stack of giant jigsaw puzzle pieces with numbers and diagrams. "It had to be simple but also sophisticated to avoid the typical look of playground and convention-center domes," Henton explains. Framing took six weeks; another three were required for square panels of walnut-veneered plywood to be precision-cut in half and assembled as sheathing. Aiken flew out from Georgetown, Texas, for a week to help maneuver around existing windows, doors, ductwork, and ceiling beams without interrupting the geometry.

"The way the light hit the panels was important to us. It had to be indirect to show the geometry of the form," Henton says. No stranger to the complex and the curvy, having formerly worked for Steven Holl Architects and Gehry Partners, she relishes toying with strong volumes. "These walls are not wimpy structures," she adds. Nor were they a bargain—they represent $65,000 of the $190,000 build-out. But Ellermeyer thinks they're worth every last buck.

Above: A chair by Charles and Ray Eames sits in front of reception's geodesic wall; both the chair's seat and the wall's veneer are walnut.

Bottom, from left: Buckminster Fuller built a geodesic dome in Montreal for Expo 1967. Worldflower Garden Domes's final CAD drawing shows the geodesic walls. Mass Architecture and Design's Form Z rendering investigated the shadow effect on the tilted panels. The firm's foam-core model was part of a series of 30. This frame of two-by-fours was photographed after two weeks of assembly. Custom, patented aluminum hubs connect the unusually angled pieces of wood. Buck partner Jeff Ellermeyer's office features an Eames chair, ottoman, and table as well as an oil painting by Frank Ryan.

Opposite top: The three geodesic partitions converge at a concrete-floored hallway that gives access to the studio and the conference area.

TABLE (RECEPTION), SEATING (RECEPTION, OFFICE, STUDIO, CONFERENCE AREA), TABLES (OFFICE, CONFERENCE AREA): HERMAN MILLER. CUSTOM PANELS: SWANER HARDWOOD COMPANY. PAINT: BENJAMIN MOORE CO. MILLWORK: CUSTOM WRX. GENERAL CONTRACTOR: STINE BUILDERS.