Loyola Marymount University Gets a Theatrical Addition

The word design may derive from the Italian verb segnare, meaning to sign, but Skidmore, Owings & Merrill senior associate principal Carlos Madrid III eschewed a splashy signature in favor of cultivating a sense of community in two recent projects at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. The School of Film and Television Undergraduate Building, a four-story slab of teaching spaces with an attached theater—24,000-square-foot in all—and the Drollinger Family Stage, an outdoor performance pavilion, both serve as student magnets that foster and sustain campus life. “The main driver was creating and activating people-oriented buildings,” says Madrid, who led both projects.

The main SFTV building is straightforward, a no-nonsense block of concrete finished in troweled stucco. Its upper levels host flexible multipurpose classrooms while staff offices, post-production classrooms, and a camera directing studio occupy the ground floor, which is pierced by a wide breezeway leading to a landscaped courtyard and the existing SFTV graduate building in back. The 86-seat theater, housed in a separate yet adjoining volume clad in matte silver aluminum panels, sits in front.

SOM Designs The School of Film and Television Undergraduate Building

For Madrid, form did not mean shape—or at least, not unusual shape. Rather, the architect used it to organize patterns of movement and rest around the simple slab, to create an armature for all the in-between moments of student life: getting to and leaving from class; hanging out; sitting down to chat, read, check phone messages. Some interiors have windows but most do not, so Madrid extroverted the introverted program. “We started thinking about how to activate the building’s exterior, putting all the circulation outside,” he says, “so we would see people moving up and down the stairs, like an ant farm.” L.A.’s mild climate allowed him and his team to service the classrooms with outdoor corridors—a stack of cantilevered aerial sidewalks, wide enough to accommodate tables, chairs, and casual encounters alongside bustling foot traffic—with staircases at each end. The whole east facade is populated and alive, a human terrarium, not simply a designed composition.

Madrid veiled the vertical streetscape with a gauzy brise-soleil. Made from pleated sheets of perforated powder-coated aluminum, the semitransparent screen lets breezes flow through the corridors while shielding them from the direct morning sun. The space between the veil and the facade acts as a passive buffer, a naturally regulated microclimate that augments building energy efficiency, exemplifying why SOM is ranked not only 19th among our Sustainability Giants but also 49th amid the 100 Giants.

The firm put additional outdoor square footage to use by turning the adjoining theater rooftop into a planted terrace, which Madrid calls a “meditative space,” while the plaza next to the theater, outfitted with bright yellow umbrellas and café furniture, serves as a shaded patio. All the outdoor zones overlook a wide, landscaped pedestrian mall—the spine of the university complex—which has a pleasingly symbiotic relationship with the SFTV building. “The patio has become one of the most popular places on campus,” Madrid reports. “It’s always active, with people hanging out and classes being taught there.”

Building Interiors Feature Mobile Furnishings

In what was a soup-to-nuts project, Madrid and the SOM team designed and furnished the school’s interiors, addressing requirements for a high-tech electronic infrastructure and highly mobile furniture that’s easily moved or stored for multipurpose classroom flexibility.

Loyola Marymount is a repeat client for which SOM has helmed eight projects over the last decade. The architects have taken contextual clues from the existing modernist buildings, conceiving structures with a simplicity and clarity that fit into the larger ensemble, seeking agreement rather than disruption—a strategy Madrid continued with the Drollinger Family Stage. Asked to design an outdoor theater to support film, dance, and drama, he was able to take the program further, in part because the pandemic proved the relative safety of gathering outside. “The building could be more,” he explains, “a classroom for everyday use, plus a facility for health, wellness, movement, and meditation—not just a place for a performance several nights a week.”

An Innovative Outdoor Theater Designed by SOM 

In devising the 3,200-square-foot open pavilion, Madrid took the formal restraint of the SFTV building to the point of minimalism. Located on a central grassy plaza, the stage comprises a low concrete podium with a row of eight slender columns on each side supporting a canted roof that seems to hover weightlessly 24 feet above the ground. In fact, the canopy incorporates a hefty grid of 2-foot-deep perforated steel beams, its coffered underside packed with lighting and audiovisual systems. Thanks to its anodized aluminum–clad perimeter soffit, which extends some 10 feet beyond the columns while tapering to a razor-thin edge, the roof appears to have no mass. Slimmer than the trunks of the surrounding palm trees, the steel pillars have no visible lateral bracing to break the structure’s floating spell or block audience sightlines and yet are sturdy enough to accom­modate conduits running up to the ceiling apparatus.

This futuristic bandshell is more than a feat of sophisticated engineering, however. In its purity and symmetry, the pavilion is like a modern take on a garden folly or a cyber-age version of a classical tempietto. Full-length curtains hang ready to encircle the performance area if required. Stirred by breezes from the nearby ocean, the billowing drapes turn the stage into a sailing vessel—a poetic moment singular on campus.

Inside Loyola Marymount University’s New Film and Television Building

skidmore, owings & merrill: paul danna; tannar whitney; karl gleason; brandon horn; wooil kim; abel diaz; john gordon; yanhong liu; lonny israel; kacey bills; nour mourad

mig: landscape consultant

hlb lighting design: lighting consultant

ama group: mep

KPFF: civil engineer

w.e. o’neil: general contractor

fermob: tables, chairs (hall, patio)

ki: tables (classroom), seating (theater)

luum textiles: acoustic panels (classroom, theater), curtains (theater)

Tuuci: umbrellas (patio)

sunbrella: curtains (stage)

alphabet: handrail lighting

chauvet: theater lighting

valmont structure: custom brise-soleil

axis lighting; targetti: light fixtures

alucobond: exterior cladding

automatic devices company: curtain tracks

Inside Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s Sustainable New York Office

2022 Best of Year Winner for Firm’s Own Office – Domestic

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is known for skyline-defining feats of architecture and engineering. That includes the building in which the firm‘s own downtown Manhattan office is located: 7 World Trade Center. The two-level, 80,000-square-foot workplace is a showcase of the mega-firm’s commitment to designing tranquil, sustainable, and wellness-focused spaces. “Radical reduction” is the philosophy followed, which involves the responsible use of resources and pruning of inessential surface treatments (see the concrete slabs as flooring). Even the connecting stair, built entirely of cross-laminated timber—the only structural material that doesn’t emit carbon in its production—is itself an experiment in structural and environmental design.

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skidmore, owings & merrill: Chris Cooper; Kenneth Lewis; Laura Ettelman; Colin Koop; Ojay Obinani; Brian Kaplan; Gary Ku; Jackie Moran; Charles Harris; Marti Gottsch; Sarah Hatch; Takuma Johnson; Cynthia Mirbach; Anisa Mohammed; Valerie Tang; Preetam Biswas; Bonghwan Kim; Stanley King

Interior Design Hosts 30/30 Event in 3 Cities for Early Career Designers

What does it mean to be a young design professional today? Designers under the age of 30 gathered in Chicago, Dallas, and New York City this fall to delve into this question during Interior Design‘s 30/30 events, a new initiative meant to honor the work of early career creatives and facilitate new connections. Roughly 30 designers, nominated by their respective firms for their dedication and stellar work, attended each 30/30 event in addition to manufacturers and established professionals.

From theMart in Chicago to the SOM office in New York City to the office of HKS Architects in Dallas, engaging discussions ensued at each event centered around prescient issues impacting designers now. Presenting for the groups, AJ Paron, SANDOW Design Group EVP and design futurist, offered insights into digital body language, communication skills, and the future of design, followed by breakout sessions for more in-depth conversations.

“Love the concept of this event,” says Chuck Chong, junior designer at SOM. “I heard this is a new thing and I’m so happy that young designers are getting the recognition they deserve because we are all in the same boat, making these connections with one another is so helpful.”

Each 30/30 event closed out with celebratory cocktails and small bites, as well as a showcase of products from event partners, offering attendees a chance to connect with manufacturers and learn more about material innovation and product development. A few lucky attendees even brought home design goodies from the end-of-day raffle.

“I really loved the event, and I could not recommend it enough,” shares Vanessa Thanh Vu, associate interior designer at DLR Group. “It was great to connect with young designers like myself. I really loved the activities AJ had us do!”

A very special thank you to our event partners:

30/30 Chicago (10/19): Formica, Shaw Contract, Lutron, Kimball International, Williams Sonoma, Daltile, Garden on the Wall, and Keilhauer.

30/30 New York (10/26): Formica, Lutron, Kimball International, Keilhauer, Garden on the Wall, and Williams Sonoma.

30/30 Dallas (11/9): Formica, Lutron, Kimball International, Keilhauer, Daltile, TURF, Scott Group, Garden on the Wall, and Williams Sonoma.

The 1980s: Celebrating 90 Years of a Design

When it comes to 1980s interior design, there’s no shortage of bold moves. Gene Summers and Phyllis Lambert of Ridgway renovate and manage the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel, replete with furniture by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and art by Jim Dine. The Musée du Louvre, Paris, shows Jack Lenor Larsen’s fabrics in 1980. In 1982, Alabama becomes the first state to pass a certification law for interior designers; Alexander Girard installs his collection at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Interior Design hosts its first Leaders’ meeting in 1983. A year later, the Design Industries Foundation for AIDS is founded and Ecart launches the boutique hotel with Morgans, New York. In 1985, Interior Design establishes its Hall of Fame. In 1986, Naomi Leff & Associates coverts the city’s Rhinelander mansion into the Ralph Lauren flagship, Charles Pfister and Pamela Babey collaborate on Royal Dutch Shell in The Hague, and Tom Lee redesigns the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. In 1987, Alan Buchsbaum—who had designed apartments for Diane Keaton and Bette Midler—dies from complications due to AIDS.

Editor’s note: In honor of Interior Design‘s 90th anniversary, we’re taking a look back at nine decades of design. Explore more coverage of the ‘30s, ‘40s, ’50s and ‘60s, ‘70s and stay tuned for more.

Design Highlights

1982 – The Kuwait Chancery in Washington, D.C.—a project by Michael McCarthy of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill—and the Prima chair by Mario Botta redefine notions of ornament.

1984 – Bold, playful work graces the April cover of Interior Design.

1985 – Harry Seidler & Associates’s Hong Kong Club opens.

1986 – Sarah Tomerlin Lee is elected to the Interior Design Hall of Fame, while the New York office of Vignelli Associates offers stunning views inside and out.

1987 – A Murphy/Jahn-designed tunnel improves pedestrian flow at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport; the Advantage Showroom by JGL Interiors was commended in an Interior Design competition and made the cover in November.

1988 – Andree Putman’s Entrepots Laine collection includes this bench.

The 1960s: Celebrating 90 Years of Design

In Copenhagen, Arne Jacobsen builds and furnishes the SAS Royal Hotel in 1960. The next year, Jack Lenor Larsen introduces stretch fabric, and Salone del Mobile debuts in Milan. In 1962, Eero Saarinen & Associates completes Idlewild Airport’s TWA Terminal. Mario Bellini begins consulting for companies such as Cassina and Olivetti in Italy in 1963; back in the U.S., Billy Baldwin redesigns New York’s Tiffany & Co., and the Interior Design Educators Council formed. Davis Allen of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill completes Hawaii’s Maui Kea Beach Hotel in 1965. The decade’s premier book of theory, Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, comes out in 1966, the same year Art Gensler opens his namesake firm in San Francisco. In 1967, New York City’s Ford Foundation interiors by Roche & Dinkeloo’s Warren Platner, and Billy Baldwin win designs the Onassis villa in Skorpios, Greece. The first NeoCon (National Exhibition of Contract Furnishings) is held in Chicago in 1969.

Editor’s note: Explore more coverage of design through the decades here. 

Design Highlights

1963 – Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designs a headquarters for Armstrong Cork in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

1964 – George Nelson and Robert Propst’s Action Office furniture for Herman Miller responds to the work habits of nine-to-fivers, while Jeremiah Goodman’s illustration of C. Eugene Stephenson design takes the cover of Interior Design‘s February issue.

1965 – Alvar and Elissa Aalto design conference rooms for the Institute of International Education in New York.

1966 – The Whitney Museum of American Art by Marcel Breuer & Associates is a new icon for New York, and Nicos Zographos’s CH-66 chair offers a novel take on tubular steel.

1967 – With De Pas, D’Urbino, & Lomazzi’s inflatable Blow chairs for Zanotta, change is in the air.

1969 – The Metamorphosis beauty salon by Design Coalition’s Alan Buchsbaum opens in Great Neck, New York.

Time Pieces

Words: Jen DeRose

These reissues are as good as new—or better.

Handcrafted in 1963, when he was a childlike 56, Alexander Girard’s whimsical figures capture his most emblematic traits: playfulness and wonder. Now, Virtra offers exact replicas to delight even the most grown-up of adults.

Girard and his wife began collecting folk art in Mexico. Eventually, the collection grew to legendary proportions-and visibly influenced dolls the designer made for his own home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

With the help of the Vitra Design Museum’s documents, 11 dolls have been reproduced accurately and marketed under the name Wooden Dolls. Like the earlier versions, the new toys are hand-carved from pine and spruce, hand painted, and ornamented with feathers and string. Heights range from 6¼ to 12 inches.

A Different Time: Thank You for Smoking

What did we know, and when did we know it? Hard to say.

On January 11, 1964, the U.S. surgeon general announced that tobacco could kill. We didn’t think he was lying, but an awful lot of us chose not to believe him anyway. Ashtrays continued to march down the center of conference tables on the pages Interior Design—occasionally showing up in medical venues as well. 

Throughout the lifetime of this magazine, liquor has also had its place. In 1941, an ad offered a combination bar and vanity. Later, innovations included bars on wheels, bars hidden in entertainment centers, and, appropriately, bars built into cocktail tables. There were bars at home and bars at the office. One publishing company had a bar, repleted with stools, right off a conference room. Imagine that!

1963 – A hand puppet, based on the popular Señor Wences variety-show act, hawks office furniture by Desks.

1967 – At the Blair Club in Silver Spring, Maryland, the TV room featured one ashtray per seat.

1969 – It was de rigueur for executives to have bars, but Robert Reynolds even equipped this New Jersey publishing company with Chairmasters bar stools.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Designs a Cutting-Edge Mixed-Use Space in Chicago

Offering amenities galore, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s 800 Fulton Market in Chicago is gaining traction with pandemic-weary companies, including John Deere, that are returning to the office. Originally conceived as a point of differentiation in a competitive market, the 500,000-square-foot tower’s laser-sharp focus on health and wellness took on even more relevance when it became one of the first new mixed-use buildings to open in the Windy City amidst the pandemic.

In addition to offering a fitness center, bike storage, and cutting-edge technologies that monitor air quality and occupancy, the 19-story brick, glass, and steel structure boasts large, light-filled spaces with tall exposed concrete ceilings, operable windows, and access to landscaped terraces. “There’s a stronger connection to nature, and the air quality is great,” SOM consulting partner Brian Lee says.

In deference to the neighborhood’s low-key character, the building’s upper floors gradually step back from a brick-clad three-story base, creating tiered elevations not visible from the sidewalk. There’s nothing modest, however, about the series of exposed structural steel X-bracing crisscrossing a soaring bank of windows on the south-facing elevation. Designed to expand and contract with changes in temperature, “It’s a beautiful piece of engineering,” Lee says.

The firm’s engineers proved equally invaluable in realizing the steel-supported mezzanine that cantilevers over the three-story lobby. A spot to mingle, it also fosters a sense of intimacy in the lounge below it, where tailored furnishings are grouped in various configurations atop a graphic white marble inlay in the dark terrazzo flooring, all bordered by greenery-filled steel planters. “It’s like an urban living room,” SOM senior associate principal Julie Michiels says. “Collaboration has always been our secret sauce and these elements are a testament to that.”

Furniture Designer Norman Diekman Dies at 82

Norman Diekman, a furniture designer and interior architect, died in late January at age 82 after battling Parkinson’s Disease. Diekman studied architecture at Pratt Institute, and later worked for Philip Johnson, who became a mentor, introducing him to contemporary art dealers and fostering Diekman’s interest in collecting art and books on art and architecture. His extensive and carefully curated library even garnered attention from rare book experts. But his eye for design continuously propelled his career forward.

After working for Lee Harris Pomeroy and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Diekman opened his own design office in 1971. He worked from 1977 to 1982 as a consultant to Ward Bennett, producing technical drawings and full-scale mockups for Bennett designs like the University Chair. Diekman then started designing furniture like the Canto executive desk collection for Steelcase. In the 2000s, the Coalesse division of Steelcase produced the Diekman Tables collection, the Soft Leaf Tables collection, which was often used in educational and healthcare projects, and the Trees collection of wood side tables. Diekman’s Cubist collection of occasional and conference tables for Tuohy Furniture won a Best of NeoCon Silver award in 2007. And in 2012, Cumberland Furniture launched the Christina tables, playful interpretations of oval forms.

Diekman taught and lectured at several colleges and universities, and co-authored two textbooks on drawing and sketching interiors with John F. Pile. He is survived by his wife of 46 years, Christina Diekman, his sister Mary Haselkorn, and five nieces and nephews.

In lieu of flowers, to honor Diekman’s passion for drawing, donations may be sent to the The Menil Collection for Drawing Center Acquisitions, 1533 Sul Ross Street, Houston, TX 77006.

Rockwell Group Earns a Best of Year Award for the Moynihan Train Hall in New York

2021 Best of Year winner for Transportation – Small

The busiest transportation hub in the Western hemisphere, Pennsylvania Station’s current iteration has long been scorned as a poor replacement for the original McKim, Mead, and White building that was considered a beaux arts masterpiece. An ongoing expansion and renovation project hopes to restore it to its former glory beginning with the newly opened Moynihan Train Hall, an annex across the street by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill that relieves congestion by providing access to most of the station’s 21 tracks. Accordingly, Rockwell Group designed a ticketed waiting area for Amtrak and Long Island Railroad customers that brings the glamour back to travel.

Interior Design Hall of Fame member David Rockwell took inspiration from classic train stations, especially the old Penn; after all, the new hall is housed in the landmarked James A. Farley Building, designed by McKim, Mead, and White nearly concurrently. Curved benches and rounded walls are made of solid walnut slats, all of it highlighted by custom vintage-look sconces. That inviting material, along with nickel and bronze, were chosen to bring warmth to the 6,000-square-foot space. In addition to the four bench bays, there are freestanding high-tops served by custom-height barstools. Both are upholstererd in yellow and blue leatherlike, easy-to-clean vinyl, the latter color repeated in a glass installation that’s been laser-etched with graphics reminiscent of the framework of the hall’s roof. On other walls, photographs by Stan Douglas depict historic scenes from the original station.

Rockwell Group: David Rockwell; Richard Chandler; Dionysios Kaltis; Hilli Wuerz; Emir Dogan; Hayden Minick

SheltonMindel and Architecture + Information Earn an Iconic Old Classic Best of Year Award for a Private New York Office

2021 Best of Year winner for Iconic Old Classic

Experiencing perhaps the greatest James Turrell piece in New York doesn’t require a museum membership. You only need to have business to conduct with this family-run office. Rising through its double-height reception area is Turrell’s enormous hollow egg shape, a chamber that required a laborious six-month process to construct from white solid-surfacing and concealed LEDs. Typically for this master of light and space, his mysterious conceptual sculpture alters our perceptions. Once you enter the egg and encounter the shifting colors inside, everything outside it looks different for a few seconds.

Like the Turrell, its surroundings make us see the world differently. A Manhattan office, it turns out, can be as graciously proportioned and serene as a Palladian villa. That’s thanks to the impressive real estate: 40,000 square feet of a tower by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and even more so to the joint efforts of the interiors firms, led by Interior Design Hall of Fame members Lee Mindel, Brad Zizmor, and Dag Folger, the latter two the co-founding principals of A+I. Mindel relates the egg installation to the philanthropic work done by the client: “This is a metaphoric think tank. They desired contemplative spaces, as opposed to some others that we all know of. That’s something beyond interior design.”

sheltonmindel: Grace V. Sierra; Michael Neal; Marc C. Newman; Emily M. Meroney; Margaret O’Connor

Architecture + Information: Brad Zizmor; Dag Folger; Cheryl Baxter; Nisha Mary Prasad; Chris Shelley; Abby Kuskin; Aaron Whitney; Katina Max Kremelberg

Deborah Berke Partners Creates a Warm, Collaborative Headquarters in Manhattan for The Wallace Foundation

DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace, founders of Reader’s Digest publishing empire, left most of their fortune to the philanthropic organizations they founded in their lifetimes—a quartet of institutions that were consolidated in 2003 to form The Wallace Foundation. Headquartered in New York, the foundation’s mission is “to foster equity and improvements in learning and enrichment for young people, and in the arts for everyone.​”

A few years ago, foundation president Will Miller notes, “we had reached a point where our old office space was an impediment to the kind of strategic, interdisciplinary, collaborative, and inclusive work we do.” So they took a floor in a classic Mid-Century Modern Manhattan high-rise designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and turned to Deborah Berke Partners to create a new space that, in Miller’s words, “stimulates and supports a working culture that lives up to our core values,” a place where “we can do better work, and in a better way.”

Under project lead Arthi Krishnamoorthy, the DBP team conjured a workplace that’s welcoming and light filled. Encircling the building core, a broad circulation corridor is flooded with natural light—and gobsmacking city views—via the glass-walled private offices, essential for the foundation’s highly focused work, that hug most of the perimeter. It’s not all heads-down seriousness, however. “Vibrant collaboration spaces punctuate the paths of movement throughout the workplace, acting as nodes where employees, visitors, partners, and grantees can interact, socialize, and convene informally,” Krishnamoorthy notes. Chief among these communal zones is a spacious social hub with a kitchen, booth seating, a large common table, and a long bar with stools set right in the window.

Finishes are warm and tactile. Rift-sawn oak clads the core and other walls; loop-pile carpeting cushions underfoot. The palette is quiet and calming—greens, grays, beiges, and other soft colors—without being bland or anonymous. Furnishings are clean and contemporary, ranging from classics like Eero Saarinen’s tube-leg executive chairs and Norman Cherner’s sculptural molded-plywood stools to freshly minted pieces like Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s bistro-inflected side chairs and Vincent Van Duysen’s boldly graphic ceiling-mounted tubular lighting system. Sleek but not slick, the program pays tribute to the building’s Mad Men–era bones without falling into pastiche. This is definitely modernism with a human face.

The distinctive tone is set right in the elevator lobby by six panels from Diversity of Thought, a seven-piece felted-fiber work specially commissioned from the Dutch artist and textile designer Claudy Jongstra. Inspired by Galileo’s drawings of sunspots, Jongstra’s stippled abstract compositions are made from wool, mohair, and silk embroidered with hand-spun silk and wool yarn. “We imagined a series of site-specific art works that would echo the mission of the foundation,” says Kiki Dennis, the interiors lead on the project. “Jongstra’s pieces evoke a spirit of generosity as they inspire a sense of optimism and wonder. At the same time, like the foundation, her studio is focused on its broader social impact—the difference they make.” The seventh panel, Sun, hangs behind the reception desk. Another Jongstra work, Two Rivers, enriches the social hub. Named for the waterways that flow around Manhattan to meet in New York harbor—a confluence visible from the offices—the textile is the artistic expression of the relationships that the foundation aims to foster among its staff and partners.

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