Nooks. Alcoves. Secret spaces and funny places. Los Angeles has loads of amazing character riddled homes and apartments with lots of charming nooks and prohibition era hidden bars and hiding places. I cannot get enough! My own home still has a dairy delivery door bill into the wall near my front door. You could turn the dial and order cream, milk, cottage cheese and more- obviously Uber Eats or GrubHub doesn’t deliver to that lil cubby, but its fun to have a historical element like that to amuse me.
When it came time to embark on a massive renovation for our newly acquired Offices & Studio space in Beverly Hills, the possibilities, spiraling, fully commenced. The nook and alcove love withstanding, it started specifically with Architect Carlo Scarpa. Funny enough a curved wall opening from his Venice project- Tomba Brion set me off. Its in a cemetery for the Brion family + sits next to the municipal cemetery in Venice Italy. The curved-(not ached!), Asian inspired (Oriental was written historically),organic opening, see below, really got me going for inspiration for the nook to come.
With our space being housed in a late 1930’s commercial building- with its original Art Deco beginnings(-how it started-) yet restrained industrial/ WW11 era primary and final aesthetic, (- how it ended-) the gilded and opulent full on Art Deco look wasn’t going to feel correct. I leaned into the industrial look, yet needed more for the space, to create division, cozy spots and places for co-workers and clients to break away. NOT a fan of open concept spaces, especially at work! Have you ever tried being on the phone or even concentrating while someone is next to you carrying on? Just, no. I wanted to separate my own office room and create a lounge nook or maybe even put a daybed with library shelving flanking either side that particular room of the Studio. So a room, within a room, within yet another room! Ala’ Scarpa.
I was recently in New York at the Guggenheim and was stunned to see another similar silhouette…Frank Lloyd Wright. The Reading Room. Curves on Curves. So now it is set- I kind of need to go in this direction, now that the worst part of the renovation is over. I hope.
Now more than ever, as we are moving back into the office, we want our office space to feel kind of home-like. Minus the typical home life and neighbor sounds, but keeping with many of the comfortable features. Cozy lounge areas, not so aggressive lighting, natural light, places other than desks to work & chat with clients and vendors. No systems furniture in sight for me- if you can help it, lucky you. Home is where the heart is and you can bring a little(or a lot) of that to the workspace!
I’ll upload the images and renderings of the FS H.Q. in a couple of days- max!
#foundationstudiola #beverlyhills #officedesign #workabledesign #workplacedesign #justsaynotostystemsfurniture #cozyoffice
