Howard Building Corporation

Project Description

Shortly after Brighter Collective, previously known as Earthbound Media, decided to reinvent its brand, the adaptive media and advertising agency concluded that it could further that reinvention by moving its office from Irvine, CA to the newly developed creative  office hub at the Hercules Campus in Playa Vista.  They signed the first lease on the campus for a 15,000 square foot hangar space that had housed Howard Hughes’s historic Spruce Goose airplane.  The space offers natural light, an open floor plan, and proximity to what would become the  center of the creative office culture in Los Angeles.

Howard Building Corporation worked with architects at HLW to build a space that retains the feeling of the open hangar with its expansive wooden structural beams above, but they went a step beyond by opening up the roof and adding a new roof structure that creates more volume and allows natural light into the core of the space.  A mezzanine level was constructed to capitalize on the volume in the space, and floating lighting elements suspended from the exposed beams add both sculptural qualities above open areas and general lighting throughout the space.

The floor was finished in polished concrete with islands of vibrant colored carpet at workstation pods and at casual meeting spaces.  Sculptural wood slat cubes create “private” office groups alongside open public areas, such as the kitchen and dining area.  Refurbished exterior walls are finished with a wood plank design that mimics the original plank flooring of the hangar, and new windows provide natural light and views to an outside courtyard where employees can sit and meet as well.