Studios Architecture

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.

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.

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.

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.

See photos of all the projects in the December 2007 issue of Interior Design. Photo by Benny Chan / Photoworks.