The Firm, a leader in international entertainment and brand management, looked to Shubin + Donaldson Architects to create a new office on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. For a client that manages the careers of such varied performers as Korn, Limp Bizkit, the Dixie Chicks, Nick Carter, Vin Diesel, and Mary J. Blige, the architects created a complex space of light, glass, and aluminum.

To mitigate a dark, first-floor former bank space, the architects devised a backlit billboard of glass facing the open work space and defining the private office corridor to fill space with light. “It fools the eye,” says Shubin. “You know exterior windows are beyond so you think of it as natural light.”

The space is rich in its composition of aged rough concrete columns and a refined aluminum curtain wall system. “The layers of translucency enhance the 29-foot high open space,” notes Donaldson. The neutral palette of glass, concrete, and aluminum is accented by clear-sealed MDF for workstations and upper-level conference room.

The expansive conference room employs an MDF baffle system with acoustic material behind it. The angled baffle system echoes the plinth-structure of the reception desk, which also houses a monitor for broadcast of The Firm’s clients. Bleachers line one wall of the conference room to seat numerous employees during weekly office meetings.

The space is a rare combination of industrial materials with fine, precise finishing. Mechanical units had to be inside the space, and run along the ceilings of the offices. Shubin + Donaldson created a catwalk for access, which is hidden from view to those on the lower level.

Fuel, an entrepreneurial company for computer animation and digital design, wanted a new production studio designed to help ensure that staff can do their best, most creative work in a comfortable and inspiring setting. As the company is in the business of creating cutting-edge visual identities for the broadcast industry, this on-the-edge look is reflected in its new headquarters. Shubin + Donaldson generated a “design attitude” that reflects the creative culture of the client: spontaneous, raw and intentional.

The interior design of this 8,000 square foot loft space features visible conduits which carry computer wiring and cables. Translucent panels allow light to pass through spaces while also acting as projection screens for displaying project images. The interior shell of the building was left raw and exposed. The space was built from multiple layers of industrial material arranged in their natural state. This honest approach allowed for a playful and unique exploration of color and texture. The layering of translucent panels, exposed cables, gang-nailed truss and homasote fiberboard mirror and accent Fuel’s graphic image and design work. All of these elements are combined within an efficient and functioning floor plan that has become the ultimate creative village.

The large open sense of the space of this former industrial facility has been maintained by the designers. Shubin + Donaldson followed the bones of the building to create space and maintain light throughout the office. The existing steel frame and sawtooth structured façade define the window-front conference room. Original structural wood beams lend character throughout the office in tandem with the ochre-colored soffit that runs through the space, concealing industrial ducts and electrical wiring cables.

Large Lumicite and aluminum panels run throughout the office as well as define individual spaces. This inspired touch also serves a dual function of creating privacy and keeping light flowing throughout the large loft-like space in which windows exist only on the perimeter walls. Besides adding light, the translucent walls are support for the soffit structure. The open frames also accommodate shelving for various private offices and casual spaces.

Workstations are defined by homosote board and vertical red panels with varnished work surfaces. Furniture is kept minimal with red seating accents. Concrete floors were maintained with original “designs” left from years of previous occupants.

The glass-enclosed conference room is sited to the sawtooth front of the building. Concrete floors run directly into the glass storefront of the building.

The Emerging Media Lab is housed and led by Interpublic Media, which oversees all of Interpublic’s worldwide media operations. Interpublic Media aligns the holding company’s media assets, working closely with Interpublic’s resources in sports, entertainment, and event marketing to deliver media solutions.

The American home has an ever-increasing number of electronic screens, many of which are connected to the web. The Emerging Media Lab was conceived as a place where advertising creatives and clients can come together to experiment and experience the newest in home electronics with the aim to test, evaluate, adapt, and improve how advertising messages might be seen and distributed on any size screen.

Shubin + Donaldson was challenged by the limited space allotted the project and by the client’s desire for several distinct media environments, each to simulate an appropriate setting for different categories of consumer electronics. For design inspiration, the architects turned film and television. They called on local Los Angeles talent from the entertainment industry to construct furniture, props, and projection curtains. Thus, the media environments purposely resemble stage sets.

The first of the new prototypes for Max Studio, a California-based women’s clothing line renowned for its casual elegance, opened in 1997 at the Fashion Island Mall in Newport Beach, CA. The store offers shoppers old-world minimalism in the simple setting designed to showcase the clothing without excess or clutter. Featuring one-off furniture, cases, metal fixtures and installations—including a towering iron screen that functions as a mirror in reverse—the store evokes the sparseness of a contemporary gallery. This simplicity lets the clothes stand out with limited accouterments.

To make the most of the typical rectangular space in today’s shopping malls, the front display window of the new prototype is massive and seemingly transparent with all the channels of the frame buried in the surfaces. The window creates a feeling of vastness and allows customers unencumbered views of the merchandise. Two over-sized metal door handles are shoppers’ only clue that they are separated from the interior. Wood floors and soft, two-tone paint set a relaxed mood to lure the casual stroller or serious spender.

Lighting was one of the more important challenges for the architects, who chose warm indirect light from fixed recessed fixtures. “Lighting is the important element for selling clothes,” says Donaldson. “It is not an overstatement to say that the use of light can make or ruin a retail space.” Harsh direct light was ruled out by Shubin + Donaldson in favor of soft shadows that complement the subtle lines and shades of the Max Studio palette.

The site, a former parking garage with large concrete columns, offered the architects the challenge of dividing a low but open plan space originally meant for cars into a human-scale work space.

The 28,000-square-foot space is organized around the mainframe computer room, which is fronted with glass on three sides. The side that backs the aluminum-clad reception desk is sandblasted glass with the company logo and backlit for dramatic effect. Poured concrete flooring wraps around the mainframe room and defines the lobby and reception area. For further definition, metal ceiling panels mirror the pattern of the concrete floor, then veer off to penetrate the glass-enclosed conference room. The sweeping conference room gives a dramatic sense of arrival and provides views onto downtown Westwood.

Maintaining the panoramic view throughout the space, as well as letting natural light permeate the entire floor, was achieved by using transparent plastic sheets suspended in floor-to-ceiling aluminum frames. The plastic “walls,” however do not touch the ground to give a feeling of floating lightness. Throughout the space, several floating fishbowl conference rooms maintain this transparency while allowing for acoustic privacy.

Knoll workstations with a Shoji screen-like pattern complement the design. Workstations as well as aluminum frames add a polished feeling to the raw elements. To make the ceilings seem as high as possible, the architects kept them open and exposed, while accenting the sprinkler lines in bright yellow. This color accent—in a space replete with industrial gray tones and black Aeron chairs—is also found on some of the perimeter walls of the office.