Building Distinction
A high-rise building designed by Richard Keating could fuel Irvine's architectural evolution and perhaps help change public perception of Irvine as the poster child of vanilla architecture. Check out our slideshow!
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| Take a Look Check out this video of the building. :: youtube.com (type “3161 Michelson” into the search field) |
A few decades ago, architect Richard Keating was in a kayak, paddling in the Newport Back Bay with his uncle, Jack Keating. They had reached the end of Upper Newport Bay and the younger Keating looked northeast to Irvine to take in the vista. “The marshlands took over, and this was essentially the terminus of the ocean,” he recalls.
Fast forward to the 21st century: Richard Keating would remember what those marshlands looked like when he was working on what would become an important architectural project in Irvine, and for that matter, in the Orange County milieu.
Bland No More
Mention Irvine and its architecture to most people who are familiar with Orange County cities and you get pretty much the same answer – beige cookie-cutter homes and bland, uninspired office buildings. Back in 1991, Los Angeles Times writer Cathy Curtis wrote this about a meeting of local architects and four judges of local architecture awards: “The planned community of Irvine came in for considerable abuse from architects. ‘Residents are frightened to death to leave,’ said San Francisco designer and jury member Barbara Stauffacher Solomon. ‘They come here looking to be individual and build themselves a wall to hide behind.’”
Some buildings at UC Irvine, perhaps, were the exception, so much so that when a Frank Gehry-designed building from the 1980s was scheduled to be torn down in 2005, Robert A.M. Stern, the dean of the Yale School of Architecture, was no less than scathing in Valerie Takahama’s story in The Orange County Register: “Tearing people’s buildings down is pretty bad stuff. And in Southern California, in Orange County, you don’t have that many interesting buildings,” said Stern, who called the region, “the plain vanilla capital of the world.”
“Other universities are trying to save their buildings and have always tried to save their buildings,” he said. “Buildings built over a period of time are what give a university, like a city, character, dimension.”
Gehry would not be the only architect to leave his imprimatur on the Irvine landscape. Since the ’80s, the UCI campus has amassed an impressive array of buildings designed by other famous architects such as Charles Moore, Robert Venturi, James Stirling, Arthur Erickson, and Eric Owen Moss.
In 2005, UCI added more luster to its collection with the Arts Plaza designed by Maya Lin, the architect who designed the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. Adjacent to the plaza is the new UCI Arts Building by Ehrlich Architects (Steven Ehrlich), which is scheduled to be completed this year.
But outside of UCI, buildings that had star power were practically non-existent, except for the stunning offices created just outside that university by Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership and HDR Inc. for, of all things, the Food and Drug Administration. In recent years, LPA Inc. in Irvine, one of the nation’s top 12 leading firms in green architecture, has designed some noteworthy commercial buildings across the state, or in other cases, remodeled them with a nod to green.
Last year, LPA Inc. converted an old industrial building in Irvine into the sleek and LEED Silver-certified Koll Airport Center. But most of its edgier large-scale commercial projects are outside of Irvine.
In 2007, a set of three new buildings on the northwest front of Irvine’s business district started turning motorists’ heads on the 5 Freeway and Jamboree Boulevard. Kia Motors America’s Headquarters and Design Center, designed by the prestigious firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP, can’t be missed for the uptilted, oversized steel roof structure of one building, the expanse of transparent glass and the large reflecting pool. In November, that Kia campus received a significant accolade – it was recognized in the International Architecture Awards List presented by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd.
Form Meets Function
Before the recession, it seemed that skyscraper fever had struck suburbia on the other side of Irvine. The most eye-catching of all the new residential and commercial buildings popping up along or near Jamboree Boulevard and the 405 was a 19-story tower at 3161 Michelson in Park Place, known as The Michelson. Viewed from the ground, the canopy-like roofline of the glass edifice draws the eye skyward, and the building exposes its dynamic design as unexpected angles of its glass and steel skin reveal themselves.
One early description about the vision for the building was “to become an urban centerpiece for an emerging center of the region. With its narrow side facing the oncoming traffic of the freeway, it is like a modern day Rockefeller Center both in terms of form and function.”
Its opposite side faced the very same marshlands and nature preserve that Richard Keating had seen from Newport Beach decades ago. By the time Keating designed the building, he had his own firm, Keating/Khang Architecture in Pasadena. The building was owned by Maguire Properties, Inc., a major owner and operator of commercial buildings. Maguire and Keating share a long history, which includes The Gas Co. Tower completed 20 years ago in downtown Los Angeles, a famous building that Keating designed when he was at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP.
Last year, Maguire Properties sold 3161 Michelson to the EMMES Group of Companies. Keating’s role was as more than just the architect of 3161 Michelson. He was there at the inception of Park Place, which, true to Irvine’s reputation and tradition, was also master-planned. “The whole Park Place master planning started in 1988,” Keating says. “We called it the town center.”
The 3161 building was to be the piece-de-résistance of this residential/commercial enclave, and Keating knew it was going to be highly visible because of its location. “The intersection of the 405 and Jamboree is a heavily traveled intersection,” he says. “There are so many people who can see it, so it’s been designed so you could see it from a long distance away.”
New Residents Come to Town
For several law firms that had either outgrown their office spaces or had leases that were up, 3161 Michelson offered more than just the glamour of a new building designed by a starchitect; the building’s floor plates were big, which meant one thing: a lot of space.
Coincidental as it may be, it’s still intriguing that four law firms – Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Bryan Cave, LLP, and Jones Day – moved their headquarters from other parts of Irvine or other cities in Southern California to the new building, with each company usually occupying two floors. The building is also home to an office of the liquor and spirits company Pernod Ricard USA.
From handsome woods and veneers to custom built-ins and elegant stone, some of the new law firm offices have been outfitted with furniture and interior architecture that take into account the modern aesthetic of the building.
But it’s the penthouse and marquee tenant that has upped the building’s cool factor. Hyundai Capital America, which occupies the 18th and 19th floors, has a hipper-than-thou break lounge facing the sky garden on the rooftop. It’s accented with iconic mid-century white Ball chairs by Eero Aarnio that render the space retro and futuristic all at once.
During the day, only Hyundai’s employees have access to what has to be one of the best office building rooftop gardens in all of Orange County. It’s a space that has sweeping views of the mountains, marshlands and cityscape and is furnished with urban garden features, sofas and firepits for Southern California-style entertaining.
If there is any aspect of the building that the tenants say has been the most significant to conducting business, it’s having easy access to this big and attractive space for corporate events. While the rooftop is being used for entertaining, its glow can be seen from the freeway and city streets and the views from above are spectacular.
Up on the Rooftop
As successful as the space has become, its origins are quite practical. The idea of a rooftop garden was Keating’s ingenious solution when faced with a potential eyesore.
“There’s a necessary functional part of the building that’s higher than the last floor – it’s a bump that comes from the elevator, and it’s a pretty nasty bump,” Keating says. “It’s an afterthought,” he says of the rooftop garden. “I told Maguire, what if we could have access to this space where you could see the Back Bay, if I could hide the bump?”
Alan Hess, an Irvine-based architecture critic who is writing about the county’s architecture, sees value in the rooftop space. “What they have done is create a big canopy that is visible to anyone driving by,” Hess says. “It reminds people below that there are people in the building. In that respect, it humanizes the building. There’s a garden feeling to it that makes it a wonderful space.”
Keating also paid attention to the interior architecture of the lobby, giving it a much more expansive feeling that tenants say is reminiscent of significant East Coast office buildings. But there’s no doubt this building exudes the Southern California spirit: large glass walls look out to dining tables under patio umbrellas, manicured landscaping and water features that bring the outside in. Tiles used as an accent on the lobby floor echo a pathway outside the building, reinforcing the connection between the two areas separated by transparent walls.
Multi-Tasking
From lobby to rooftop, 3161 Michelson is a significant edifice, Hess says. “In terms of innovation and success in the way it deals with issues such as its environment, the building is near the top, as far as Orange County buildings are concerned,” Hess says. “The architect does make an effort to make it look like a landmark by playing with its form and shape and surface materials.”
3161 Michelson and the Kia Motors America buildings on the other end of Jamboree Boulevard together may very well represent the next phase in the slow evolution of architecture in Irvine. But will their collective sensibility embolden the city to approve esoteric and iconic buildings?
Equally important: Will developers and architects be motivated to create buildings that will alter the perception (deserved or not) of Irvine as the poster child of vanilla architecture? And is there a gilded age in Irvine’s architectural future?
Hess hopes so. “I do feel that Irvine is growing and deserves the best architecture,” Hess says. “What happens to commercial architecture in suburban areas is that developers or architects send the B team to design the buildings, which in the end, doesn’t produce anything of value. But in this case, the architect has definitely tried to step up to expectations and done it well.”
