The Umbrella

Culver City, CA | 15,000 sq ft

Looking much like an accident between an airplane and a building, the Umbrella’s feature corner element helps this once nondescript industrial building stand out in Culver City’s burgeoning film production district. Tucked into the southeast corner of the town, the Hayden Tract consists of block after block of forgettable industrial buildings that recall the heyday of Culver City’s once-strong aerospace industry.

The project posed at least three significant challenges. The first challenge was to figure out how to modify the existing trusses and add new, but compatible, structure to support the stair and accompanying glass canopy. Providing seismic resistance that didn’t compromise the visually exposed structural sculpture posed the second design challenge. Even if these two challenges were met successfully, we realized that communicating the resulting structural design to a contractor posed the third challenge.

Bowstring roof trusses salvaged from another building served as the starting point for the unusual design of the structural sculpture. The architect inverted the trusses, added a new pipe truss, and set them at angles to each other forming a six-legged star. A large section of the roof and exterior walls at the building’s northwest corner was then chopped away. A 12-inch diameter sweeping pipe, that frames the cut in the roof plane, supports the edge of the cut-away roof and the ends of the trusses. The trusses and supporting web of twisted steel pipes and plates were placed into the resulting void, dramatically emphasizing the intersection of the normally hidden structure. The erstwhile stage, now a roof access stair supported by the trusses, flows through the plane of the roof and the corner of the building’s exterior wall. Shotcrete fills the spaces in the roof plane not occupied by the stair. A cascading canopy of shaped laminated glass follows the downward march of the stairs.

The Umbrella, and similar buildings are now finding new lives housing pre- and post-production companies, film companies, and special effect houses. The dynamic corner element of The Umbrella serves as a metaphor for the area’s creative talent.