The office is located in Culver City, in a 1940s light industrial warehouse. Adjoining it from the outside, a 50-meter steel structure, clad in corrugated metal, once housed a production press.
During the reconstruction, the architect retained the old concrete walls and wooden roof beams, and made the press tower the highlight of the project: now there is an open public area where you can open a cafe or a leisure facility.
Moss cleared the corrugated cladding from the tower, revealing the frame. Around the middle of the height, a platform with 28 steel pots, in which Mexican cacti grow, is mounted in it. They are arranged according to the principle of a lattice, 5 pots in a row, with a lacuna the size of two pots in the center - so that light penetrates into the public area below. Irrigation and lighting systems are integrated into the steel skeleton and are invisible from below.
The 30,000 m2 of the former warehouse has been converted into a media center with a variety of indoor and outdoor conference areas, offices and recreational facilities, encased in an existing concrete shell.
Eric Owen Moss himself received the prestigious Charles Jenks RIBA this month, which will be presented to him in December in London. It should be reminded that the prize, which in recent years has been won by Zaha Hadid, FOA, Peter Eisenman, UNStudio, Coop Himmelb (l) ay and Stephen Hall, is awarded annually for the contribution of international importance to the theory and practice of architecture at the same time.
N. K.
