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Project: Nettwerk Productions Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Description: 10,000 sq. ft. head office for an independant record label Client: Ric Arboit, Matt Jowett, Terry McBride [Nettwerk Productions, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada] Nettwerk Productions Headquarters is a workplace grounded in the client’s culture of the music industry at all levels. We provided a distinctive identity to each of the growing departments within the company (mail-order, accounting, artist management, publishing, record label, art department, web services and information services) while retaining the intensity and synergy that these departments derive from their interaction with each other. Our design rationally divides the back loft space according to the different departments and uses the single story front lobby space as the social condenser or big living room. This front room provides an important new identity for the company and signals its recent prominence in the music industry. The space accommodates the president’s office, a weekend retail outlet of Nettwerk merchandise, a lounge and bar for employees and receptions, a receptionist desk, and a conference room. The space is designed to change over TIME for FLEXIBILITY of use. Large pivoting and sliding doors separate spaces and the reception desk and cd display wall can be rolled or slid out of the way for the use of the entire length of the space for live performances, parties, or other such events. We transcended a very tight budget by being responsive to the existing industrial building in our remodel and by being inventive in the use and reuse of materials. The heavy timber, douglas fir furniture throughout the project is made of off-cuts from the resizing of existing ceiling beams and two walls that face the front lobby space are constructed entirely of 72,000 unsold compact discs stacked on steel rods. These walls steal light from the front lobby for spaces behind and appear highly refined while utilizing recycled merchandise as a construction material. The wallpaper on the lobby walls and ceilings is custom-made using a billboard printing process and utilizes a Nettwerk LP cover enlarged to become a continuous field of black, magenta, yellow, and cyan dots. These various material strategies reinforce a rich, complex spatial matrix analogous to Nettwerk’s identity which is business-like while representative of a company at the leading edge of creative culture. |