1811 Sacramento Street

The Arts District Project is a fifteen-story office concept proposed for Downtown Los Angeles. The project is a model of the future of workplace with a focus on healthy building strategies and energy efficient technologies. The project defines an exterior workplace typology and enhances the culture of art and making that characterizes the Arts District. The industrial buildings of the Arts District possess a utilitarian beauty that comes from an honest expression of material and structure. Layers of vibrant murals and wheat paste posters were added to the patinated textures of brick, concrete and steel – giving the streets of the Arts District their distinct character. The Arts District Project expresses its structural grid which creates a protective shell around both interior and outdoor space within the building. A layer of brightly painted aluminum louvers are wrapped around the concrete structural frame, functioning as both mural and solar filter reducing energy use and improving occupant comfort. The louvers are designed to recall the rail yard legacy of the site, with the sculptural form derived from railroad tracks splaying out from a single branch. Beneath the louver facade, outdoor office space is carved and terraced into the interior of the massing – bringing Los Angeles’s spirit of climate opportunism to workplace design with the creation of over twenty percent of exterior office program.