This cityLAB + Gensler Los Angeles publication insti- V1 gates a new conversation about the future of office work, office buildings, and their impacts on downtown The Future of Off ice Work Off of Future The Los Angeles. This instigation takes place during an era of urban resurgence in the city and increased mobility in contemporary life. Los Angeles can be considered both America’s last industrial, railroad city and its first post-industrial, automobile-centered city. As such, the trajectory of downtown Los Angeles’s future potentially charts the future of other American downtowns— especially those in the West and in the Sunbelt. Office work in Los Angeles has been sheltered by multiple versions of the mono-functional office building, both high and low-rise, situated within many different settings; from the office parks and low-rise industrial buildings of the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, to the landscape of logistics that is the Port of Los Angeles, to the autotopia of Century City, to the creative offices spaces of the Westside, and to work- live spaces in a re-imagined downtown. The variety of Los Angeles’s office landscape is the result of decades of architectural experimentation, and, according to some boosters, has contributed to its resilience to broad economic change. The reimagining that continues to transform Los Angeles’s central business district into downtown Los Angeles does so by reconfiguring the regimes of time, place, and selves that set the temporal and spatial definitions of work downtown, and in particular, the kind of downtown work most often labeled “office work”. The Future of Off ice Work Volume 1: How We Got Here First published in the United States of America in 2013 Editors: Dana Cuff (cityLAB), Tim Higgins (cityLAB), Shawn Gehle (Gensler by cityLAB UCLA & Gensler Los Angeles), Li Wen (Gensler Los Angeles), Emmanuel Soriano (cityLAB), Christina Gray (cityLAB), Yang Yang (cityLAB), and Aaron Cayer (cityLAB) cityLAB UCLA Department of Architecture +Urban Design Design: Danielle Duryea (Gensler Los Angeles), 1317 Perloff Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1467 Meghan Moran (Gensler Los Angeles) and Dan Oprea (cityLAB) www.citylab.aud.ucla.edu Cover Photography: Ryan Gobuty (Gensler Los Angeles) with concept Gensler Los Angeles by Emmanuel Soriano (cityLAB) 500 S. Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071-1705 Funding for The Future of Office Work: How We Got Here was provided by Copyright © 2013 cityLAB & Gensler Gensler Los Angeles and Gensler’s Firmwide Research Program The Future of Off ice Work: All rights reserved How We Got Here No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner, without written permission from the publishers, except in the context of reviews. Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions. Table of Contents Introduction 6 City [Place] 12 Building [Enclosure] 30 Desk [Experience] 46 Alternative Off ice Spaces 64 Findings and Implications 74 Bibliography 78 236mm This cityLAB + Gensler Los Angeles publication downtown. The variety of Los Angeles’s office “downtown” equivalence with the Southern twentieth century echt-Californian set of re- recognizing an office workforce that is now, chief component of downtowns, providing instigates a new conversation about the future landscape is the result of decades of architect- California region’s political and economic center. lational antonyms, both urban and suburban, through technology, increasingly liberated from both the fabric of the CBD and, in some places, of office work, office buildings, and their im- ural experimentation, and, according to some Though visions of a revived downtown have Introduction has stopped making sense—rendering nonsen- the desk and boundaries of the office building. contributing to its imageability through making pacts on downtown Los Angeles (recently re- boosters, has contributed to its resilience to sought to inspire strategies to overcome those sical a host of other once inherently incompat- How this liberation may amplify the positive skylines, office work—even more than the con- Introduction figured as DTLA). This instigation takes place broad economic change. challenges, most of them focused on reposition- ible, binary, relationships that described the changes already taking place and leverage the sumption of high culture and high-end goods— during an era of urban resurgence in the city ing downtown as the city’s central business dis- Introduction city, the spaces formed there, and the pattern- resources of the city as a whole remain in has been the signature activity of many down- and increased mobility in contemporary life. Los The reimagining that continues to transform Los trict and the region’s preeminent location for ing of urban lives and livelihoods. question. Our work begins with a retrospective towns, including downtown Los Angeles. Angeles can be considered both America’s last Angeles’s central business district (CBD) into office space. Prominent groups of professionals look at the evolution of office work at the industrial, railroad city and its first post-indust- DTLA does so by reconfiguring the regimes of created plans for downtown over the years with Scholars of the particular shifts in technological, scale of the city, building and desk in order to As such, office work has long been viewed as rial, automobile-centered city. As such, the tra- time, place, and selves that set the temporal this singular set of aims. political, and economic paradigms that char- understand the development of office work assembling a vast array of knowledge-based jectory of downtown Los Angeles’s future po- and spatial definitions of work downtown, and acterize the current moment, as well as critics and its modern capacity for reinvigorating enterprises including administration, organiza- tentially charts the future of other American in particular, the kind of downtown work most However, none of these efforts imagined an in- seeking to make sense of the fragmented, con- downtown Los Angeles. tion, exchange, management, logistics, market- downtowns—especially those in the West and often labeled “office work.”1 As Los Angeles has tegrated downtown with high-speed rail access, sumerist, and decentered discourses surround- ing, planning, financing, deal making, govern- in the Sunbelt. Office work in Los Angeles has transformed into a global economic pole, circuits LA Live, Disney Hall, a new football stadium, the 7 8 ing these shifts, have focused their investiga- The commodification of office space and rela- ance, documentation and accounting related been sheltered by multiple versions of the mono- of accumulation have become increasingly rapid; Grand Avenue Park, a Broadway streetcar, new tions on scales from the metropolitan to the tive ease of producing planametric “flexibility” to the economy’s productive and consumptive functional office building, both high and low- mass production and mass consumption have hotels, and tens of thousands of residents. In- global. At the same time, projections of poten- by accommodating standardized office config- sectors. While city dwellers could engage a rise, situated within many different settings; made way for more flexible systems of making stead of being the CBD again, DTLA floats in a tial DTLA growth, and the ability of downtown- urations made a lasting mark on the typological variety of activities in downtowns, the one from the office parks and low-rise industrial and acquiring, as telecommunications techno- constellation of LODOs, EDOs, DUMBOs, if not as-planned to accommodate that growth, have architecture of the office building. Certainly, thing that no one from the middle or working buildings of the San Fernando and San Gabriel logies evolved towards instantaneity, and the SoHos. It has inspired new conceptions of metro- already been accomplished by the Los Angeles the gathering of these predominantly single classes did in or near the CBD, including those Valleys, to the landscape of logistics that is the region has become the playing board for politan growth—ones that not only scuttle hoary City Planning Department. Urbanists, neverthe- purpose buildings into a CBD command center working in downtown offices, was reside Port of Los Angeles, to the autotopia of Century Michael Dear’s “Keno Capitalism,” to cite but models of the monocentric city—and more recent less, have yet to develop and delineate DTLA remained a key objective of urban renewal there. Downtowns counted among their very City, to the creative office spaces of the West- one interpretation of the late capitalist Angeleno theorizations of polycentric urban form. In the scenarios that speculate on the impact of the and downtown redevelopment across North few denizens typically only those with the side, and to live-work spaces in a re-imagined cityscape.2 These transformations challenged midst of this vast formal change, an essential contemporary mobile workforce on the city, America. If the office building has been the capacity to choose any residential option and 1 For further discussion on time, place, and selves, see among others, Bob Jessop . The Regulation Approach, Governance and Post-Fordism, Economy and Society. (Blackwell Publishing, 1995). 2 Michael J. Dear and Steven Flusty, “Postmodern Urbanism.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90, no 1 (2000): 80. Downtown Los Angeles 1870 to 1945: A machine for office work MACHINE AGE Integrating the city, building, and desk through efficiency,