reconfigure the generic warehouse it occu-
pied on an industrial estate in Culver City,
California. As co-principal David Freeland
explains: ‘They wanted to strengthen their
identity and create a more exciting place in
which to work and for their movie-making
clients to experience. They had to move out
while we made the changes, giving us only
12 weeks to complete the job.’
The task was to reconfigure 800 m^2
on the main floor and an angled mezzanine
gallery to realize an ideal working environ-
ment for ten permanent employees and up
to 20 temporaries hired to work on differ-
ent productions. Freeland conceived what
he calls ‘tumbled cubicles that playfully
challenge the regularity of the typical office
space’. Most of these white MDF cubes are
clustered across from the mezzanine and
orientated inwards to create visual links
between the core staff. The result is a diago-
nal axis of open space for circulation and
informal gatherings, with more enclosures
for meetings, visiting directors and digital
editing located on and below the gallery.
To infuse such an expansive space
with energy yet avoid any sense of empti-
ness, the designers rotated the cubes and
milled their surfaces with patterns of lines
that echo the corrugated metal of the roof
and suggest another set of rotations, as
though the whole complex were in a state
of arrested motion. Cubes are piled atop
cubes, and the designers proposed a display
of props, projections or cartoonish foam-
core furniture. A single chair was ordered,
which further enlarges the potential of the
cubes – work below and play above.
‘Our business is about teamwork,
bouncing ideas off each other,’ says Marian
Harkness of Hungry Man. ‘The new layout
gives you the sense that you’re working in
one room while allowing you to retreat to a
quiet space.’ Freeland concurs: ‘We’ve dis-
covered that the open office is not very pro-
ductive. Here, we’ve divided up the space
to accommodate different-sized teams and
achieve flexibility, while carefully calibrat-
ing different degrees of privacy.’ – MW
architect11.com
freelandbuck.com
waynemcgregor.comHUNGRY MAN
PRODUCTIONS
LOS ANGELES
Freeland Buck’s redesign of
a warehouse space occupied
by Hungry Man Productions
combines flexibility and privacy.Eric Staudenmaier
SPACES 91