Let There Be Dark

Robyn Dutra -- Interior Design, 2/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

Robin Elmslie Osler knows the importance of proper lighting, not only because she's an architect but also because she once modeled for the likes of Helmut Newton. "I have an intimate understanding of how light works in photography," she says. However, in the case of La Boutique, a photography retouching studio with big-name clients including Chanel and Vogue Italia, it's an absence of light that's actually required. This commission pushed her conception of light versus dark to a higher level.

La Boutique is on the top floor of New York's historic Collier's building, where EOA/Elmslie Osler Architect had been working for the past year on both an exterior restoration and an interior renovation for the Kelly Klein Photo Studio, right down the hall from La Boutique. The success of the Kelly Klein design and Osler's knowledge of the landmark in general cinched the deal to build out a workplace for La Boutique's nine-person staff. Plus, general manager Tarik Malak chimes in, "She speaks French."

Osler was charged with retaining the 2,300-square-foot space's industrial chic, a look quite unlike the futuristic interior at La Boutique's Parisian parent company, B'Pong. Her minimalist envelope relies solely on neutrals: a floor of ground and polished concrete, white walls, and an exposed ceiling.

Sand-colored, eco-friendly structural fiberboard, something that's usually hidden out of sight, was Osler's main materials move. Citing its durability and tactility, she employed stacks of the stuff to build the bases of workstations and even whole walls—the reception area looks like it's carved out of solid, striated blocks. The fiberboard functions as sound insulation, too, so retouchers can work in silence, undistracted. After all, it's crucial not to lose focus while working on the level of micro-pixels.

With blackout shades pulled down over the windows along the outer row of workstations, the main office area is almost completely dark. "Darkness was my guiding principle. Obscurity was my mission," Osler says. The one exception is the glow from computer screens, which shine through the workstations' partitions of corrugated resin and perforated stainless steel for a slightly moiré effect.

Malak's office, which doubles as the conference room, is the only work space where brightness is more important than darkness. That's because the retouched photos are carefully examined here, on a giant magnetic whiteboard. Beneath the original skylights, Osler suspended three fluorescent proof fixtures from stainless cables—providing constant illumination and preventing glare by angling the fixtures so light bounces away from the whiteboard rather than into your eyes.

Concerns about lighting were equalled only by the need for comfort. To keep the overall climate cool, a separate room isolates the massive heat-generating Fuji Final Proof and Epson Pro 4800 printers responsible for the majority of output at the studio. And the generously proportioned workstations all come with an Alberto Meda task chair.

Clients sit in deceptively basic-looking Maarten Van Severen side chairs that owe their comfort to a seat made of integral polyurethane foam and a backrest with integral springs. "I wanted those chairs for six years," Malak enthuses. He first spotted their slim silhouettes in the library at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Handblown glass pendant fixtures by Michele De Lucchi and Gerhard Reichert hover over the glass-topped table in the conference room at San Francisco investment bank Montgomery & Co.

Clockwise from top right: Polished aluminum frames the custom sliding doors of executive offices. Aluminum laminate and leather clad the reception desk. A staircase of limestone and steel wraps an elevator enclosed by frosted glass. The office occupies the very top of 2 Embarcadero Center, a 1983 building by John Portman & Associates.

Wolfgang C.R. Mezger designed the guest chairs in the CEO's office.

Clockwise from top left: A Marcel Wanders pendant fixture hangs over the reception desk. Magnetic whiteboard covers almost an entire wall in the general manager's office. Cabinetry in reception is clad in plastic laminate. An acid-etched glass door divides the general manager's office and the office area; Maarten Van Severen's .03 chairs are on both sides.

From top: Alberto Meda task chairs accompany all desks. During working hours, blackout shades cover the windows.

CUSTOM CORRUGATED PANELS (OFFICE AREA): 3FORM. CUSTOM PERFORATED PANELS: MCNICHOLS. DESK SURFACING (OFFICE AREA), CABINETRY SURFACING (RECEPTION): FORMICA CORPORATION THROUGH MANHATTAN LAMINATES. PENDANT FIXTURE (RECEPTION): MOOOI. DESKS (RECEPTION, OFFICE): KNOLL THROUGH OLI. PENDANT FIXTURES (OFFICE): JUST NORMLICHT. WHITEBOARD: THROUGH HEALTH & EDUCATIONAL EQUIPMENT CORP. DOOR GLASS: F.J. GRAY GLASS COMPANY. DOOR TRACK: HÄFELE. CUSTOM WINDOW SHADE (OFFICE AREA): MECHOSHADE SYSTEMS THROUGH CITY VIEW BLINDS. CHAIRS: VITRA. LINEAR FIXTURES: DELTA LIGHT THROUGH REGENCY ARCHITECTURAL LIGHTING. FIBERBOARD: HOMASOTE COMPANY THROUGH PRINCE LUMBER. PAINT: BENJAMIN MOORE & CO. MEP: PERFECTAIRE. GENERAL CONTRACTOR: DOWNTOWN DOMAIN.