Pour it On
A powerful palette defines ICrete, a Los Angeles office by Felderman Keatinge.
Edie Cohen -- Interior Design, 6/1/2011 5:20:00 PM
Consummate pros, Stanley Felderman and Nancy Keatinge typically jump right into a job: program, process, presentation. And a repeat client is the most straightforward of all. ICrete, however, was a different scenario. Despite the fact that Felderman Keatinge + Associates had already designed two offices for ICrete's parent company, the Pacific Capital Group-in the same Los Angeles building, no less-the couple had plenty of convincing to do this time around. The buttoned-up approach suitable for investment banking wouldn't cut it for a new architecture-related company launching a proprietary process. (ICrete has patented a technology that increases the strength of concrete. That means smaller amounts of it, up to 40 percent, will be required for installation, making the process inherently green.)
Felderman and Keatinge worked out a visual dynamic that steers clear both of the trappings of the financial world and of the scrappiness of a start-up. "As the business evolves, the space is supposed to evolve," Felderman says. The floor plan has an open center-you know, the kind typically touted as fostering teamwork. That setup brings us back to the program. The space, Keatinge explains, is a brainstorming think tank for the employees, not a showcase for product.
Because the 9,200-square-foot triangular floor plate was raw space when ICrete signed the lease, Felderman Keatinge got to choose what to build out and what to leave exposed. That created a yin and yang of refined, well-ordered furnishings and look-twice details versus sweeping industrial statements. Overhead, for example, the smooth white gypsum-board ceiling peels back to reveal swaths of tangled mechanicals. Exemplifying the Form Follows Function school, reception's canted walls are striking, yes, but also sturdy enough to support large concrete panels should there ever be a need to prop them up for display and demonstration purposes. The gently curved drywall partition opposite-a more delicate construction, scored by a slim horizontal aperture and stainless-steel ledges-is, Felderman says, "a peekaboo piece" separating the reception desk from the central office area beyond.
Signature materials, which first manifest themselves at reception, appear throughout the work spaces. The long reception desk is veneered in the same walnut as the open-fronted cabinets over the office area's workstations. They're likewise long desks, only with tops of Fin-ply clad in white plastic laminate, panels of vinyl-coated polyester, and supports of enameled steel. Felderman Keatinge designed the workstations with a minimalism that makes them appear to be floating above the gray carpet. Weightier in feel is the conference room's table, its oval top again walnut-veneered.
"Things slip past each other," Felderman explains of the subtle way that the work surfaces, cabinets, ledges, and slots don't quite line up. "There's a sense of movement, a rhythm that's almost musical." Not to interrupt it, secondary elements recede. Oversize doors are frameless, as are glass partitions.
In the CEO's office, a rounded corner at the intersection of two runs of perimeter offices, minimalism gives way to eclecticism-with Hollywood Regency flourishes in a chiaroscuro composition. Pure white leather upholsters a wing chair and a straight-lined sofa. Gleaming white, too, are the lacquered desk and coffee table, both with turned legs. George Nelson's Bubble lantern is more of a cream color. Meanwhile, the CEO's modified wingback and the high-backed guest chairs are ebony dark. Even the black-and-white digitized photograph of a British bobby sticks to the scheme.
Felderman Keatinge fully approves of the bobby photograph. As for ICrete's red, black, and white ninja posters, mounted on foam core, Felderman remarks, "I don't have a clue." And he's someone with artistic savoir faire, right down to his method of client presentations.
Preliminary sketches in gouache and ink persuaded ICrete to sign off on the office design, despite initial trepidation. "I don't use computer renderings," Felderman says, adding that his versions offer an immediacy that "conveys and facilitates the process." Plus, he notes, "I'm faster than the computer." Keatinge chimes in: "Stanley's drawings helped educate the CEO and his staff, some of whom had been in construction work, and take them through the process. You have to do a little hand-holding with a client like this." Turns out Felderman's drawings were spot-on from the start. Installation follows preliminary sketches to a T.
Photography by Eric Laignel.
PROJECT TEAM
meegan maile: felderman keatinge + associates. wm group engineers: mep. dtank: woodwork. environmental contracting corporation: general contractor.
Product Sources
FLOS: LINEAR FIXTURE (RECEPTION).
MODERNICA: PENDANT FIXTURE (OFFICE).
NIENKÄMPER: TABLE (CONFERENCE ROOM).
KNOLL: TASK CHAIRS.
KNOLLTEXTILES: WORKSTATION PANEL MATERIAL.
DELTA LIGHT: LINEAR, RECESSED CEILING FIXTURES.
SHAW INDUSTRIES: CARPET.
DUNN-EDWARDS CORPORATION: PAINT.
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