We have been working with Universal Audio to update their headquarters in Scotts Valley, CA. UA reproduces classic analog recording equipment and designs new digital recording equipment. They have worked with copious world-renowned recording artists over the past 60 years.
Their rather ubiquitous 1980's office building also functions as a recording studio and the manufacturing facility for their products. Fuse, a local architecture firm in Santa Cruz, had originally implemented a structural facelift for the old Seagate premises, which gave us a great foundation to work from. By spring 2016 UA was ready for the final layer of detail to be implemented in their lobby.
The client wanted us to create an inspiring and exciting entrance for their employees and visitors alike. Below is a walkthrough of our design proposal:
This is the staircase BEFORE:
The oversized dusty ficus dominated the entire space:
This is the staircase AFTER:
The inherited materials of the concrete floor combined with the reclaimed wood really worked in our favor. We wanted to clean up the palette in this space and allow the warmth to come from the wood. The existing yellow and brown color on the walls felt like they were competing with one another. A more contemporary palette of crisp white and charcoal gray was implemented. We also wanted to update the plants in the space, get rid of the large ficus plant which is so synonymous with typical office design and start introducing more mature succulents to the existing beds, swapping gray pea gravel out for black river rocks.
This is one of the 4 doorways to the interior offices BEFORE:
Entrance ways to offices AFTER:
This is the kitchen on the mezzanine BEFORE:
The second story mezzanine has a great break out space mainly used for coffee making and chess playing. The main issues here were the lack of storage and the barstools were too high for the counters.
This is what we designed:
This is a rendering of our design:
This is the finished mezzanine with a carpet we designed using FLOR carpet tiles:
One of the final finishing touches is the installation of vintage speakers and phonograph horns which inhabits the double height entrance wall in the space between the two floors. (Showing one happy client!)
We have a couple of little details to finish up before taking some professional photos of the completed space but we couldn't wait to show you all the progress.
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