Elliott didn’t pursue a LEED rating for 1001 West Wilshire, but he incorporated several design strategies that marry sustainability with practicality. “In our part of the world, you don’t need to buy photovoltaic systems if you do things passively,” he says. “You save enormous amounts of energy with things like shade.” “Because of the south roof overhang, we were able to choose clear glass,” which is less expensive than tinted, Elliott explains, and “gives the kind of daylight that reduces electrical consumption.”
View looking east
View looking northeast
Site Plan
In early sketches, the architect articulated the elevation as simple horizontal bands of brick and glass. Then he revised, adding a 20-footsquare plane of HGP glass in a Kawneer frame that projects slightly from the banded façade.
“I had some fun with the north side of the building,” Elliott says. On that side, 1001 faces a roofing company that unavoidably roughens its context.
Elliott traded a conventional lobby for a hallway along the south side of the ground floor (left), anchored by fire stairs at either end. “You look out the rows of windows and have a sense of the activity and movement along the street,” Elliott says. “You aren’t in some interior lobby where you have no sense of orientation.”
Elliott treated the hallway and the stairwells as a suite of linear and vertical galleries.
Elliott treated the hallway and the stairwells as a suite of linear and vertical galleries.
Canopy Edge @ Wall - The detail drawing illustrates the connection between the roof of the south-facing porch and a freestanding brick wall. A 2 1/4-inch reveal separates the standard wide-flange I-beams from the masonry. “Where these two materials would come slamming together, this reveal provides a soft connection,” Elliott says. “The reveal leaves enough tension for the two materials to connect but separates them with some air.”
Renee Van Helm’s '100 Years of Color' lines the hallway; each disc represents the most popular color from a year of the 20th century.
