Innovation Station

Design Team: Michael Frederick | Advisors: Craig Hodgetts

Culver City, California : 2011
California’s sunny coast has a short but rich history with architecture built to develop and California’s association with innovative grows from cold war era military industrial academic research complexes. Employees often took the infectious creative energy of their workplaces home to tinker with personal projects giving rise to mid century American garage culture. The Innovation Center is a new look at the research center utilizing architectural expression to reinvigorate the pioneering spirit of Southern California. Within the project privacy and transparency are in constant conflict. The former is mandatory to maintain intellectual property, while the latter facilitates spontaneous cross disciplinary interaction driving creative exploration. With government support for R&D waning companies must actively seek public participation to support future growth. This confluence of values leads to a highly choreographed structure of public private interaction within the building. Using material and spatial manipulation the project guides users through a series of interactive and visually stimulating spaces designed to challenge and invigorate their creative endeavors, yet never revealing more than is appropriate.