The Arts District Project is a fifteen-story, net-zero 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 in Los Angeles. The Arts District Project expresses its structural grid which creates a protective shell around both outdoor and interior space within the building.
A layer of brightly painted aluminum louvers is 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 and well-being to workplace design with the creation of over twenty percent of exterior office program.
Comprised of three “biophilic building blocks” – the green office, the passive office, and the conditioned office – the Arts District Project is designed for optimal flexibility, giving employees the autonomy to select a work environment that meets their daily needs or preferences. The industrial buildings of the Arts District possess a utilitarian beauty that comes from an honest expression of material and structure. To compliment the Arts District Project’s ground-level art gallery and makers space, 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.