Stealth Office Building in California by Eric Owen Moss Architects



Stealth Office Building in California by Eric Owen Moss Architects

The Stealth, an office building designed with modern concrete block wall located in Culver City California. Created by Eric Owen Moss Architects, the design concept originated with a requirement for the excavation and removal of toxic earth on the west street front of the formerly industrial site. A concrete block wall was constructed to enclose the two remaining warehouses on the east, and the Stealth was constructed to the west, against the new wall. A portion of the excavated area, underneath the overhanging new structure was re-graded, and landscaped forming a sunken garden and meeting space, six feet below the sidewalk elevation.

The north end of the original warehouse that adjoins the new structure was designed as a performance and meeting area for the tenant, Ogilvy. The stage is enclosed by a movable wall of steel doors which opens to the new garden. The new block wall that separates the old warehouses from the new building has two primary openings: the north aperture forms the theater proscenium which holds the sliding steel doors; the south opening admits vehicular traffic, which passes through the wall on the way to a parking area at the rear of the site.

The new structure itself has a three-sided north end elevation, and a four sided south elevation. The building was intended to be divided among three tenants. Ogilvy occupies the ground floor theatre, with the stage positioned in the old warehouse, and the audience seating, outside, under the long span truss portion of the new structure. The steel frame structure approximates a plan grid on the south, facilitating a simple organization of tenant space on the two floors. The building center holds a glazed, elevator lobby on the ground floor, and open decks and bathrooms on floors two and three. The north end, also designed for a single tenant, contains the second floor and a mezzanine above that opens to floor two below. - Photos by Tom Bonner

EMAD HANI ISMAEEL

                 Ph.D. in Technologies for the Exploitation

                 of the Cultural Heritage .

                 Senior Lecturer in the Dept. of ArchitectureE-mail:        emadhanee@yahoo.com

                 College of Engineering , University of Mosul 

                 Mosul - Iraq .

                  emadhanee@gmail.com

Web Site:   http://sites.google.com/site/emadhanee/

                  http://emadhani.blogspot.com/

Tel :           +964 (0)770 164 93 74