WHEN venerable advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather decided to quit its traditional office in a west Los Angeles corporate tower， it was looking not just for a new place to work but for a new way to work. The agency， founded by the charismatic David Ogilvy and today part of the global WPP Group， wanted to shed its rather staid Madison Avenue-style image in favour of a more open， democratic and creative approach in which old hierarchies would be broken down.
This explains the choice of new location in an Eric Owen Moss building at Culver City - a modern development with an expansive glazed facade incorporating the entrance portals and high ceilings topped with exposed timber - and the appointment of hip young architects Russell Shubin and Robin Donaldson to fit out the 2，800 square metre (30，000 square foot] open-plan floor.
Given such a distinctive architectural shell， the designers faced a challenge to impose their own authority on the interior. Their idea was to avoid explicit city-planning metaphors seen elsewhere in ad agency offices in California and express Ogilvy & Mather‘s communal workstyle in a looser， more casual way. The scheme‘s narrative element is set up on entry to Moss‘s building with a perforated metal ‘time tunnel‘， 13.4 metres {44 feet) long and lined with LCD monitors showing agency showreels. which lakes visitors on a journey to the heart of the firm.
The project concentrates the workforce in the front portion of the building with facilities for client interaction in the rear， but in truth the entire scheme plays with notions of translucency and transparency. The time tunnel leads into a main work area of custom-designed desking， with ancillary features such as a library， production area and listening rooms zoned off by giant acrylic panels.
The industrial metaphors and the use of the framed words of the company‘s founder to remind people why they are at work - ‘We sell or get fired‘ - could make the scheme appear brutal.
But， in the same way as the raw-concrete floor is interrupted by carpeting to soften the factory effect， so the project as a whole balances authority with a lightness of touch to give Ogilvy & Mather a dynamic new image.
