Studios Architecture

EDMUNDS.COM, LOS ANGELES

Annie Block -- Interior Design, 12/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Just because your client makes his living providing information on cars such as the $170,000 Aston Martin DBS doesn't mean he's springing for a pricey office. With a budget of $88 per square foot, managing principal Chris Mitchell and associate principal Sandra Page Mitchell provided a 90,000-square-foot design that wouldn't drain the corporate tank of funds. “It couldn't be about car photos,” Chris Mitchell explains. Instead, the husband-wife architects created what he calls a “Sunset Boulevard vibe” with a white backdrop enlivened by swaths of intense color. Equally bold vinyl film embellishes the switchback stairway's glass balustrades. And a 60-foot-long coffee bar encourages car talk.

Gensler

PROJECT Bertelsmann Direct North America, New York.

STANDOUT During a weekend party, urban artists including Doze Green and Rostarr painted site-specific works on oriented strand-board.

A+1 Design Corporation

PROJECT Cline Davis & Mann, New York.

STANDOUT Orange glass partitions, a magnetized pinup wall, and low-slung furniture turn part of a break-out area into a meeting lounge.

Gensler

PROJECT Virgin Mobile, Warren, New Jersey; and New York.

STANDOUT In conference rooms, custom flocked wallpaper irreverently combines portraits of Honest Abe with Victorian motifs.