This two-story masonry and timber warehouse embodies many of the rustic characteristics found in Tolleson’s earlier offices, such as exposed brick walls and wood trusses, wood floors, and skylights.
As visitors enter the building, they ascend to the second floor where reception and lounge await. At the helm of the office, a light-filled library, reading area, and lounge are adjacent to the main conference room. Collaborating with Design Workshops, Huntsman designed this room to read as a floating volume within the warehouse space.
Many of the features of the original Tolleson office come into play in the new location; the reception desk is made of hot rolled steel – a technique that defined the design direction of the original studio. Timber trusses and posts were bead-blasted to reflect the redwood’s natural warmth and color. New steel beams form the edges of the room and define a contrast with the original construction. A series of four-foot wide pivoting doors connect the conference room to the surrounding public spaces. Rippled glass panels hark back to the design elements of the first Tolleson office and provide translucency while maintaining privacy.
The communal kitchen and break room space anchor the north side of the studio. Natural and rustic materials once again articulate the restored warehouse aesthetic. Materials sourced locally, such as the tiles from Heath Ceramics and a slab of marble, make up the backsplash of the kitchen wall. Design Workshops fabricated cabinetry that elegantly conceals kitchen appliances, as well as a custom bar-height counter lit by a Marcel Wanders designed lamp. Eames DSR chairs make the perfect companion to an oversized white oak dining table.
The mezzanine houses business functions such as accounting and operations. A staircase comprised of open timber treads and forged steel railings reveals the activity in the reception and studio below. Reclaimed barn wood surrounds the conference room and extends up into the office, seamlessly forming its interior walls. The building’s original timber trusses frame the view from this perch across the light-filled public zone below and towards the activity of the Barbary Coast neighborhood beyond. via
