Driven by a desire to impress clients, get their name "out there," or perhaps just to spend all day working in a cool space, the quest for the hippest ad agency HQ continues apace, as firms wrangle to invent the next Superdesk. Previously, this campaign yielded up "the world's only known Jacobean ping-pong table." In the converted movie theater HQ of Grupo Gallegos, designed by L.A.'s Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects, the statement-making piece is a collection of 300 light-diffusing umbrellas hung from the ceiling.
Design Boom describes Grupo Gallegos' input in the project as a request to incorporate "both hispanic culture and coastal lifestyle into the office design," based on the company's client base and Huntington Beach, Calif., location, which LOHA fulfilled with a bright and sunny color palette, a pair of mezzanine meeting areas with the word "ocupado" stretched across (the opening and closing of the blinds signifies whether they're actually occupied), and that most Californian of traditions, a juice bar, converted from the cinema's old ticket booth. Plus, "in order to engage the outside public with the creative office environment," the facility also includes a gymnasium which opens its doors to youth sport leagues, which promotes "an atmosphere that feels as much like a community hub as it does a workplace." See for yourself below:
· Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects Transforms Cinema Into Grupo Gallegos HQ [Design Boom]
· All Office Spaces posts [Curbed National]