Legally blond

Pale perfection characterizes the public space that DMJM Rottet designed for Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in Los Angeles

Edie Cohen -- Interior Design, 5/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

In Los Angeles, ARCO Plaza has served as an unofficial landmark—a pair of 1973 AC Martin Partners buildings standing 52 stories above downtown. Since 2002, the building has also been the L.A. home of global law firm Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker. When the practice relocated to 198,000 square feet on eight floors and the north building became the Paul Hastings Tower, the firm's new interior clearly required an untraditional, forward-thinking look.

DMJM Rottet principal Lauren Rottet was a natural for the job. An architect with almost 2 million square feet of law offices to her credit, Rottet had just completed the design of Paul Hastings in New York. And she certainly knows how to push the proverbial envelope, designwise, while maintaining a high level of efficiency.

"Our rationale was to spend money in the areas seen by the client's clients," says the architect. So she made her case for combining the building's 25th and 26th floors into a double-height knockout of a public space. This 50,000-square-foot zone now encompasses reception, lounges, and a 13-room conference center. "Our previous office was yellow, gray, and old," says Patrick A. Ramsey, partner in the Paul Hastings real-estate department. "Lauren's design reflects where we're going in the future."

Opening up the window walls to the building's 10-foot module let the cityscape make a stunning first impression. "The views are part of the visual composition," says Rottet. The most dramatic panorama unfolds along a 220-foot-long stretch. Reception, a casual glassed-in meeting room, and a run of larger, glass-fronted conference rooms line up parallel to the fenestrated elevation, but Rottet pulled them back 8 to 10 feet to free up a window-front walkway as the primary circulation path. Attorneys' offices, limited to either 10-by-15-foot or 15-foot-square standards, line the remaining perimeter.

Inside, whites dominate. For the reception desk, Rottet chose a glossy lacquered body, a 3/4-inch-thick slab top of textured white Thassos marble, front panels wrapped in cream patent leather, and a stainless-steel base. Behind is a focal wall of sandblasted Cippolino marble with blue-gray veining. The gleaming Thassos marble floor surrounds a stairway with a honed Danby marble base and treads, glass balusters, and a stainless-steel handrail.

Amid the overall orthogonality, the stairway is subtly skewed and its risers slightly splayed. "I've been experimenting with tips and angles to create a sense of motion," says Rottet. Here, the stair forces perspective upward to a landing wall of Nordic ice-birch veneer— a shot of warmth amid the cool white stone. Slight shifts also occur at the ceiling perimeter, where the drywall is tilted to give the impression of greater height and depth.

Passionate about furniture—she currently has eight collections in production for as many manufacturers—Rottet designed almost every piece at Paul Hastings. Reception's custom lounge chairs, covered in velvet and leather, face a custom coffee table of lacquered wood and back-painted glass. More Rottet-designed lounge seating, framed in birch and covered with leather and long-haired mohair, inhabits the casual meeting room. At the long window wall, lacquered drum tables stand between two pairs of Arne Jacobsen Egg chairs, a mid-century vignette for the laptop and cell-phone era. As Rottet points out, "That's the way people work now."

Previous spread: At Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker's expanded office in Los Angeles, DMJM Rottet combined the 25th and 26th floors to form a double-height public space with a central reception area. Photography: Benny Chan/Fotoworks.

Opposite, top: On the six office floors, custom workstations are veneered in the same Nordic ice birch seen on the wall of the stairway landing above reception. The workstations face attorneys' offices fronted in laminated glass. Opposite, bottom: In the public zone, Arne Jacobsen's Egg chairs and custom lacquered drum tables cluster near a 220-foot-long window wall.

Above: The stairway, slightly canted to produce the illusion of grandeur, frames a window-front meeting room. Left: The floor is Thassos marble; the stairway base and treads are polished Danby marble.

Above: Transparency weighs in through the 1/2-inch-thick lead-free glass fronting one of 13 conference rooms, all with tables topped in Thassos marble. Alberto Meda designed the chairs. The lithographs are by Ed Ruscha. Below: In the informal meeting room, Rottet designed furniture in Nordic ice-birch veneer, cream leather, and chocolate long-haired mohair. The charcoals are by Suzanne Caporael. Photography: Benny Chan/Fotoworks.

Opposite: The custom lacquered reception desk is topped by textured Thassos marble and fronted with panels wrapped in patent leather. Sandblasted Cippolino marble clads the focal wall.

Associate principals: Naomi Asai (design); Vano Haritunians (technical director); Alice Hricak (project management). Project architect: Michael Au. Custom handrail (reception): Washington Iron Works. Desk patent leather: Cortina leathers. Carpet: Decorative carpets. Egg chairs: Fritz Hansen through Knoll. Egg-chair leather (reception), lounge-chair leather (meeting room): Spinneybeck. Custom lounge chairs, drum tables (reception), seating, coffee table (meeting room): Martin Brattrud. Wall laminated glass (office area): PPG industries; Pulp studio (fabrication). Partition frames, doors: Wilson partitions. Nordic ice-birch veneer (stairway landing, meeting room): Bacon Veneer Company. Chair upholstery (reception): Edelman leather; F. Schumacher & Co. Accent-pillow fabric: Bradbury collection. Chairs (conference room): Vitra. Custom wall panels: Tyco International. Panel fabric: Carnegie; Thai Silk Company. Glass wall: Rountree Glass Co. Millwork: Architectural Woodworking Company. Drywall: Martin Bros./Marcowall. Marble supplier: Carnevale & Lohr. Consultants: Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design (lighting); McKay Conant Brook (acoustical); Vantage Controls (audiovisual). Structural engineer: Wong Hobach Lau Consulting Engineers. Mep: Levine Seegel Associates. General contractor: Environmental Contracting Corp.