Commercialinterior

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Commercial Interior Design

Winner

Gensler

San Francisco

Runners Up

Helmuth Obata + Kassabaum Interiors

St. Louis

ISI

Los Angeles

For the second year in a row, Gensler was the most prolific commercial interior design firm in Los Angeles, with $15.3 million in local billings in 1998.

In fact, Gensler did more than four times as much business as its nearest rival.

The firm’s major projects last year included designing the animation campus of DreamWorks SKG in Glendale and working on the new offices for Big Five accounting firm Arthur Andersen in the downtown L.A. Library Tower.

Because Andersen employees often work at the offices of clients as well as on-site, Gensler designed a 150,000-square-foot workplace environment to accommodate those work habits.

So instead of each consultant having his own permanent office, a number of different workspaces were built. That way, workers can pick their space depending on the work they’ll be doing that day.

“If I’m going to meet a lot of people that day, I can reserve a conference room. But if I’m only going to need a desk for a few hours, I can reserve a space at the ‘town center,’ ” said Nila Leiserowitz, vice president and head of Gensler’s workplace practice unit. “The project’s goal was to combine off-site and on-site activity, and this design allows people to work in multiple spaces.”

The so-called town center is a workspace where employees can plug in their laptops to get up to speed before heading to see a client.

Gensler has four units specializing in different industries entertainment, airports, development and workplace environments.

Some of those areas are further split into market segments. For example, the workplace group targets law, professional and technology firms to allow designers with certain expertise to be assigned to appropriate projects.

“Each particular market has specific needs,” said Leiserowitz. “For example, the relation of leadership to staff is organized differently in a law firm than in a professional consulting firm.”

Besides DreamWorks, Gensler’s other entertainment clients in recent years have included Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Paramount Pictures Corp., Warner Bros. Inc., and Walt Disney Co.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Gensler opened its Los Angeles office in 1976.

Edvard Pettersson

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