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By SARA FISHER

Staff Reporter

Call it post-Cold War recycling.

When Windmill Lane Productions, a Santa Monica commercial production house, moved into its new digs at a derelict factory three years ago, owners Ben Dossett and Meiert Avis had as creative an idea for their work space as they for their work.

Years before, the partners had seen a photograph of an Arizona plane graveyard. They were fascinated by the stark heap of decommissioned plane parts, and saw it as a potential film site. That opportunity hasn’t yet arisen, but the duo decided to use old B-52 bomber parts to create a workable office out of the 24,000-square-foot space.

“We had to reign ourselves in a bit after we scouted around the plane graveyard,” Dossett said. “What would we really have done with a full fuselage? We settled upon using less romantic wing flaps as the most useful.”

For the price of two dollars a pound for the plane parts, the Windmill Lane office was turned into a pretty unique environment. Four gigantic B-52 wingtips perch on end as room dividers, with affixed wooden tables running their length on either side serving as work areas. Instrument control panels have been topped with glass and turned into side tables along the periphery of the vast room.

Bomber pilot seats mounted on rollers are used rather than normal desk chairs (though many employees use more conventional office models) and several more are affixed to the walls for guests. The pilot chairs’ odd angles and metal edges look a bit intimidating, but the seats are actually quite comfortable.

“They were designed to be sat in for 14-hour flights,” Dossett pointed out.

Juxtaposed against the structure’s industrial look, the office is filled with pieces of sculpture, paintings and a hodgepodge of sofas and throw rugs. In the back of Windmill Lane’s warehouse-like shooting area, a geometric reflecting pool is installed in the poured concrete floor, with a B-52 rudder spouting out of it. A wingtip serves as a ceiling for the row of restrooms.

Dossett and Avis initially played with repositioning the wings in a couple different configurations. But since each wing weighs about 200 pounds, they quickly settled on lining the wings up in parallel, dividing the room into wide aisles.

With the floor plan fixed for better or worse it’s the people that move around to accommodate the company’s changing needs rather than the subdividers.

In contrast to most production houses, in which employees cluster along department lines, Windmill Lane literally assigns each project a wing. Every one involved sits in the same area. When projects change, seating arrangements change. More importantly to Avis and Dossett, creativity and work speed are both expedited by such a synergistic layout.

“When we first moved here, I wasn’t sure we could get into this layout, but it’s been terrific,” said Stephan Smith, the design director. “We can communicate easily all day long about a project, which really helps.”

With that group dynamic comes a marked lack of privacy. There can be several feet of desk between employees, and the couch areas provide some quiet space for a private telephone conversation, but there are virtually no doors to close.

“The major downside is that since you’re always visible, people have a tendency to always feel free to approach you,” said Bronwen La Grue, head of post-production. “There is absolutely no privacy. And if a run-in occurs between people, it blows up quickly. But having said all that, it would be very difficult to go back into a traditional office.”

Another challenge is that with the exception of a conference room and an Avid computer editing bay, the building has no air conditioning. Several large doors, which can be opened for cross ventilation, are scattered around the building. But since breezes can’t always be up to the task of a Southern Californian summer, the employees’ dress code of tank tops, sandals and shorts makes sense.

The lack of air conditioning rendered a loft area, which was supposed to be used for offices, virtually unusable. Now it’s just a very hot and stuffy storage space. Dossett acknowledged it was the office design’s biggest disappointment.

Surprisingly, sound is not a problem. The wings serve as effective acoustical barriers. Between rows, little can be heard. As for the constant discussions held along the same rows: “Everyone is talking about the same things, so its not disjointing,” Dossett said.