Program: A 110,000-square-foot, 20-story residential tower with 67 live-work lofts and a fitness center on the mezzanine. Floors two through sixteen have four units each, floors seventeen through nineteen have two, and the twentieth floor features a single penthouse unit. New construction at the base of the tower creates space for three restaurants.
Design concept and solution: In transforming a 1960s office tower—the tallest high-rise in Hollywood—into lofts, the architects wanted to show off the building's steel structure by contrasting it with clean new finishes. Leaving the stairs and elevator core intact, they gutted the interior and reskinned the exterior in a transparent glass curtainwall. The new facade hovers just beyond the steel beams, forming a clear glass box that reveals the tower's internal structure. On the north and south walls, ten-story billboards pop out from the exterior, adding square footage (and privacy) to the bedrooms behind them, and creating balconies for those just above. On the interior, Kanner fireproofed the steel structure and painted it gray. White gypsum board walls and dropped soffits play up the contrast between the dark steel and the light dwelling space: the rooms appear to float against a recessed backdrop.
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