New Zealand Commercial Design Trends Series NZ Commercial Design Trends Vol. 34/01C | Page 77

Facing page:Perched on high,
overlooking the complex and
downtown LA, Greenhouse is a
restaurant and event space that
continues the semi-industrial feel
of the wider development.
Below:The new Washington Arts
Building combines carparking
with ground floor retail. The
building’s broad fins downplay
the carparking component from
the street, while the graffiti-like
mural echoes more impromptu
artworks that had covered the
site before construction began.
boxcars, constantly coming and going – hence the
name of the hub and the Boxcar building itself.”
Boxcar’s stacked architectural elements echo the
look of scattered, abandoned shipping containers
– both in their individual container-like forms and in
their semi-industrial corrugated metal facades.
“To further evoke the sense of strewn containers,
there’s a random element to the design, seen in the
blued metal panel in the mid section of the facade,”
Abramson says.
Across an internal street from Boxcar stands
the new Washington Arts Building – essentially a
carpark building, although that’s not how it reads
from the street. As the name implies, the building’s
almost as much about art as about visitor parking.
Its functionality is set back behind sculptural,
slender horizontal blades, punctuated by protruding
glass boxes intended to showcase local designers’
works – or simply act as retail displays.
Plus, the side of the Washington Arts Building
has a colourful wall-sized graffiti-like mural, by artist
Jen Starck, referencing the typical spray can artistry
that creeps over a disused industrial environment.
And then there’s Abramson Teiger’s intelligent
use of what’s already there – after all, the greenest
building is one that’s already built.
“In addition to its freight train history, the project
site more recently acted as a car dealership. We
integrated some elements of this history as well,
with an existing Landmark Repair Shop retained
and reconsidered as shops and restaurants,” says
Abramson. “We removed the garage doors from
the rows of car bays and replaced them with glass
storefronts – and these slots are the store interiors.”
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