Stealth / By Eric Owen Moss Architects

Culver City, California, United States
Eric Owen Moss Architects
Post By:Kitticoon Poopong

Photo © Courtesy of Tom Bonner

The bold geometric form and visible transition in section from a square to a triangle, appealed to the creative advertising agency that occupies this office building.

Photo © Courtesy of Tom Bonner

The tenants felt that the building and the high visibility resulting from its prominent raised location reflected their own ethos of creativity and innovation. As a “gateway” to the campus-like cluster of buildings and landscape by EOM, the building announces to the world that something important and unique lies within.

Photo © Courtesy of Tom Bonner

Three existing warehouses in an old industrial area of Culver City, that at the time was largely derelict and unoccupied, were converted to offices that would attract a new type of tenant who was less interested in the usual amenities of commercial space, such as a downtown location or conservative building type, and more interested in the technical infrastructure of the building and a stimulating work environment.

Photo © Courtesy of Tom Bonner

In the warehouse closest to the street, chemicals used by a former tenant had leaked out over a number of years and contaminated the soil. The first warehouse was demolished in order to gain access to the substandard earth. That earth was removed, leaving an enormous cavity. Rather than filling the hole, it was reshaped to form a large outdoor theatre/garden with seating for 600.

Photo © Courtesy of Tom Bonner

The architects of EOM worked closely with the contractor and subcontractors to devise an efficient means of construction. By using the offices advanced computer modeling, components of the steel frame could be analyzed and configured for economy and ease of fabrication. One especially innovative technique devised by the team and the contractor was to fabricate the entire vertical assemblies for the service and circulation cores off site and essentially “bolt” them to the structure, resulting in a significant savings in cost and time.

Photo © Courtesy of Tom Bonner

The Stealth offers a variety of space/shape and user flexibility for their open and closed production area, conference and office spaces. An essential idea of the building is not to produce a single shape but rather an evolving section over the length of a building. The transformation in section from a square to a triangle provides a constantly varying sequence of interior and exterior spaces. The flexible design anticipates a regular rearrangement by the tenant of the work areas.

Photo © Courtesy of Tom Bonner

The exterior bridges and mezzanine level take advantage of the Southern California climate and increases the area of possible open seating, lounge and informal gathering areas for the tenants. There was a conscious decision to provide a building that had a distinct identity to which potential tenants could identify with their company. The building’s location near a major thoroughfare in Culver City and as a building that acts as a public gate to a campus like site behind it, makes this identity even more powerful.

Photo © Courtesy of Tom Bonner

“Applaud the clients with the vision to support this building, and envy the tenants who will step each day into such an intelligent, inquisitive, and mysteriously joyous environment."
-Joseph Giovannini, Architecture Magazine.

Photo © Courtesy of Tom Bonner

The design concept for the Stealth originated with a requirement for the excavation and removal of toxic earth on the west street front of the formerly industrial site. One of three contiguous warehouse structures, forming a single working space, was demolished to provide ground access to the area where the polluted soil was to be removed. 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.

Photo © Courtesy of Tom Bonner

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 stage can seat 150, the garden, 600, for a theatre-in-the-round performance. 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.

Photo © Courtesy of Tom Bonner

The new structure itself has a three-sided north end elevation, and a four sided south elevation. Over its 100 meter length, the building section transforms, changing its interior and exterior shape continuously as it moves from the triangle end to the square or the square end to the triangle. 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. There are two full floors, lifted in the air, on the south end of the building, useable by one or two tenants.

Description from the Architects:

site plan--drawing © Courtesy of Eric Owen Moss Architects

floor plans--drawing © Courtesy of Eric Owen Moss Architects

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 painted steel bathrooms and related mechanical equipment structures on the decks were prefabricated off the site and craned into place. Visitors enter the lobby at grade, and proceed up the elevator to open pedestrian walks on two and three, and then move either north or south into the tenant spaces. The north end, also designed for a single tenant, contains the second floor and a mezzanine above that opens to floor two below.

axon series--drawing © Courtesy of Eric Owen Moss Architects

Video: Animation Section View of The Stealth - an office building in Culver City, CA

Project Data
Project name: Stealth
Location: Culver City, California, United States
Program: Office Building
Total area: 28,000 square feet
Completed: 2002

Awards:

• Business Week/Architectural Record Award2003
• 33rd LA Architectural Award 2003 
• Honor Award, American Institute of Architects, California Council 2002 
• Merit Award, American Institute of Architects, Los Angeles Chapter 2001 
• LA Business Council Design Award, 2001

Publications:

• Office Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhauser, featuring the Stealth, ed. Birgit Klauck, 2002
• So Cal Real Estate, 2003
• Innovation: New Architecture Magazine, 2003
• L’Architettura (Italy), Stealth, by Emilia Giorgi, 2003
• Business Week, “The Business Week/Architectural Record Awards”, November 5, 2003, The Stealth
• L.A. Architect, January/February 2002
• Baumeister, (Germany) Stealth, by Sebastian Knorr, November 2001
• Architecture, “Constant Change,” by Joseph Giovannini, The Stealth, November 2001
• Lotus 109 (Italy), “Eric Owen Moss and Culver City,” by Luca Molinari, 2001
• Architecture, “Eric in Wonderland,” by Joseph Giovannini, March, 2001
• GA Document 64, “Eric Owen Moss: Stealth, Buildings One & Two,” by Yoshio Futugawa, February, 2001
• GA Documents 61, “Eric Owen Moss: The Stealth”, April 2000

The people
Owner/Client: Samitaur Constructs
Architects: Eric Owen Moss Architects
Principal Architect: Eric Owen Moss
Project Architects: Don Dimster, Jay Vanos,

Preliminary Design: Scott Nakao, Shengyuan Hwang
Design Development: Nick Seierup, Scott M. Nakao
Project Team: Dennis Ige, Thomas Ahn, Sophie Harvey, Scott Hunter, Naoto Sekiguchi, Todd Conversano, Paul Groh, Dolan Daggett, Nadine Apmann, Frank Brodbeck, Craig Shimahara, Mogens Milbauch, Cheen Lin, Kam Chathurattaphol, Ranya Alumar, Warren Young, Andreas Heipp, Munah Hedjazu, Lorenza Cristofolini, Velvet Hammerschmidt, Emil Dilanian, Susanne Jensen, Dana Mansfield, Kishani de Silva, Kira Ogle, Ann Kosmal, Joy Keller, Richard Lin, Eric McNevin
Contractor: Samitaur Constructs
Director of Field Operations: Peter Brown
General Superintendent: Tim Brown
Structural: Kurily Szymanski Tchirkow Inc.
Structural Steel: Cal State Steel
Electrical: Silver, Roth, and Associates
Mechanical: Antieri and Associates

Photographs: © Tom Bonner


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