Working with independent studio production company, East End Studios →, Grimshaw has revealed designs for a 16-soundstage studio production campus in the Arts District of Los Angeles. A development application for the project - the East End Arts District Los Angeles (ADLA) campus - was filed with the City of Los Angeles on the 15 August 2022.
The new campus - occupying a 15-acre former industrial site - responds to its location and context and moves away from the more traditional studio layout to create a ‘vertical campus’ and delivers a more publicly open relationship to its downtown neighbourhood.
At raised ground, the creative workplace buildings - which combined provide 300,000 square feet of workspace and 100,000 square feet of production support space - are connected via a series of active outdoor terraces and walkways.
At street level, connected to the campus facilities but contained, is basecamp - the logistical vehicle access where trucks, equipment and actors’ trailers can move safely between the soundstages and production spaces.
The ADLA campus is evolving the traditional development of sound studios. Campus connectivity and city context has driven Grimshaw’s approach to the site which holds industrial heritage and will accommodate a digital future, and the opportunity to work on a project that is part of our own direct community, with Grimshaw’s Los Angeles studio only a handful of blocks away, is particularly exciting.
Andrew Byrne, Partner, Grimshaw.
Situated on the intersection of 6th and Almada Street, the redevelopment of the site also connects to the growth of the local economy – a vibrant live-work neighbourhood of creative commercial, maker spaces, and residential – and will ultimately provide 1,000 jobs. The typically high, bank facades demanded of studio production sites has been tempered and integrated into the surrounding streetscape through a breaking down of the large building module, moments of activation, public amenities and landscaping. The campus itself will be accessible at three points - along each edge of the site with a public open space proposed on Mill Street.
"We jumped at the opportunity to build a world-class campus for digital content production in the Arts District,” said Shep Wainwright, managing partner of East End Capital →. “The existing and proposed amenities in the area, the sheer size of the property, and the billions of dollars of nearby transit investment represented an unmatched opportunity to bring desperately needed modern production space to Los Angeles.”
Beyond the site boundaries, the campus will also take advantage of its location, which will ultimately have direct access to multiple transit stops and the newly opened 6th Street Viaduct. The industrial heritage of the area has also been referenced and celebrated in the design, and modularisation of the building has been explored to increase the lifespan of the structures, simplify and accelerate the build and contribute to the sustainable development targets of the project.
Design team
Client: East End Studios →
Architect: Grimshaw
Landscape: Studio MLA →
Structural Engineers: Englekirk →
MEP Engineers: Meyers+ →
Civil Engineers: Langan →
Project Managers and Cost consultants: Gardiner & Theobald →
25.08.2022