Beehive

Beehive

Culver City, California

The Beehive is a new office building and conference center that was inserted into an existing fabric of warehouses. An existing two-story, wood building was removed and a new two-story structure was designed over the same footprint. The site is captured on three sides by existing buildings, leaving only approximately 35 feet of public street façade. The project is an exercise in creating a public image for the building that is capable of communicating its presence in a limited area along a busy street. The front portion of the building, referred to as The Beehive, was the solution to this problem.

The tenant, Medschool.com, needed the majority of the building to be flexible, open work areas with some private offices. Because of the building’s orientation, natural light is brought in through clerestories and a skylight in the center of the building. A hole is cut in the second floor that allows the natural light to be transmitted to the first floor. The front piece of the building is directly connected with the rear portion of the building on both levels. The ground floor of the Beehive is the main entrance and reception area for Medschool.com.

The shape of the Beehive was dictated by programmatic requirements and the constraints of the site. The varying shape responds to the different internal functions and the act of attaching to an existing group of buildings. The structure is in essence, four columns that are wrapped horizontally by tubular steel at four-foot intervals that provides the framework for the exterior cladding. Had nothing else been done to the structure, the final shape would have been a cylinder. However, the four columns were manipulated by both leaning in different directions and breaking or changing direction to accommodate the larger square footage needed on the second fl oor conference room.

Eric Owen Moss Architects