SHR Perceptual Management
Morphosis

Photo courtesy Morphosis

Morphosis has designed a unique interior, in a three story generic office building, that communicated the identity of the client, an advertising / design and marketing firm, as creative problem solvers in contrast to the homogenous context of the existing Scottsdale environment.

Three key attributes of the firm were identified as qualities that were to be expressed through the architecture:

1. Strategic discovery
2. Refined precision
3. Genuine partnering

The office entrance from the generic elevator lobby is a dynamic and complex procession with a double-height volume from below and a material/spatial axis sliced through the "tube" toward the computer volume and the outdoors beyond. Linear, folded screens of perforated metal float above the interstitial work areas. Attached to the bottoms of the existing trusses, they reveal the architecture of the generic shell within which this particular genius loci is established.


Photo courtesy Morphosis

Conflicting needs for privacy and team interaction were identified as alternate systems in juxtaposition. Addressing these issues, the interior defines the different functional zones of a design firm with a set of distinct architectural gestures within a nondescript normative office environment.

Drawing courtesy Morphosis

The existing building core, together with the existing (glazed) perimeter wall, form an overall "U" of raw office space. Within this area, the primary form is a thick wall of office partitions that three-dimensionally curves, bends and folds its way in an arc from one end of the space to the other.

The space enclosed by the concave arc of the tube and the orthogonal core block contains the flexible conference/work areas, singular architectural events of implied enclosure and material specificity. Between the outside edge of the tube and the existing exterior wall are the offices requiring complete privacy.


Photo courtesy Morphosis

The computer/ conference area at the southwest corner is an isolated event. The bank of private offices is disrupted for the rotated platonic volume containing the computers and an interstitial conference/work area to occur at the glazed wall.

Secondary themes - both material and spatial in nature - simultaneously confront, oppose, and reinforce the primary gesture of demarcation. Each of the three conference/work areas inside the white "tube" of workstations is an oasis of distinct material presence.

Sketch courtesy Morphosis

Drawing courtesy Morphosis