Jack Skelley and JSPR thank colleagues, clients and cohorts for another inspiring year. For a 20-second highlight reel click below...
Blog: Updates on Urbanology
Creative Karma at NeueHouse Hollywood
Form magazine published my essay about the opening chic co-working space, NeueHouse Hollywood. Perhaps most exciting for me about this space is its architectural and artistic pedigree. As I wrote in Form:
It’s a Moderne masterpiece designed by William Lescaze, replete with sculptural curves, Deco portholes, and irreplaceably classic elevator cabs and handrails. The six-floor, 100,000-square-foot space is drenched in entertainment legend. It includes the former Columbia Square Playhouse, where Lucille Ball invented the two-camera shoot. Former recording studios favored by Brian Wilson are now private meeting rooms. If there is such a thing as creative karma in a building, it would be here.
For the full (short) story, click here.
Urbanology Update: elevon
Ehrlich Architects Reinvent the Work Environment: A recent site tour by Urban Land Institute unveiled new office-space solutions. ULI Los Angeles’ case study was held at the under-construction elevon at Campus el Segundo. Attending were community leaders, top brokers and design professionals. elevon allows businesses to purchase their office building – unique in the L.A. area. The design also sets it apart: “There is a feeling of being in your own house, including private outdoor areas,” said Architect Steven Ehrlich of Ehrlich Architects, famous for custom homes around the world. “And they are set within an overall neighborhood context.” Natural light and natural materials are everywhere. Ehrlich’s residential-inspired elevon design has been profiled from Globe Street and L.A. Business Journal to Form magazine. Above is a photo from the ULI event and below an interior rendering. Here is a report from the ULI tour.
Greystone Mansion Goes Pop and Over-the-Top
Valentino meets Magritte
The theme of the latest designer makeover of Greystone Mansion is “Titans of Business.” But the results are anything but business-like. Color and imagination runneth-over in the more than two dozen installations at the already extravagant Doheny residence overlooking Beverly Hills. Curator Design House International had designers pay tribute to business leaders who inspired them. Even when that titan is the designer’s own patron, the results are elegantly fun – as when Lisa Turner of Interior Obsession salutes her client Stevie Wonder: It’s a music room of sculptures and artifacts from Wonder’s own collection, including a pop-art “Wonder wall” of album covers and a tangled, brass-instrument sculpture above the piano.
The Alissa Sutton Interiors tribute to Valentino drapes the fashion giant’s red gowns on manikins. These headless figures stalk the mansion’s basement bowling alley. It’s a dreamlike but friendly encounter. As much a tribute to surrealist painter Rene Magritte as Valentino.
L’Esperance Design, Inc. turns the Grand Entry and Gentleman’s Study into uber-Baroque salutes to William Randolph Hearst. There is chrome-plated furniture galore – gleamingly monochromatic – as well a set of absolutely bizarre, black armchairs in the form of oversized animals. Care to lean back into a giant octopus?
Other highlights: In the Children’s Playhouse Bedroom, inspired by Jim Henson, Eric Brand turns The Muppets into high art. The Gun Room, by Nicholas Lawrence Interior Design, a tribute to NBC Entertainment Chair Robert Greenblatt, is the ultimate TV lounge, streaming Fred Astaire musicals. Mrs. Doheny’s Suite, in the hands of Kara Smith and SFA Design, becomes celebrity stylist Petra Flannery’s studio, with a closet that is a gallery of Hollywood glamour, including portraits of Natalie Wood and Elizabeth Taylor.
“Titans of Business and the Best of Design” is open Thursday November 21 through Sunday, November 24, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The above post was first published in Form magazine.