Second Home Hollywood, LA
Second Home, the co-working business for entrepreneurs and innovators, has opened its first U.S. location in Los Angeles. ‘Second Home Hollywood’, also known as ‘HolLA’, is designed by SelgasCano. The architects transformed a former Hollywood parking-lot into a sprawling co-working complex which is surrounded by a garden. Second Home Hollywood has replaced 90,800 square feet of hardscape for 70,000 square feet of landscape. What previously was a parking lot is now a garden.
The site was home to two structures: a building designed in 1964 by Paul Williams, which has been retained and reused as part of the campus; and a second building which has been demolished and replaced with a garden that contains 60 oval-shaped office pods of varying sizes, which are topped with bright-yellow rooftops that resemble a cluster of lily pads when seen from above.
In this existing building, 320 roaming places are located in the ground floor and additional offices with 200 workspaces are in the first floor. The ground floor of the building also features a number of spaces that are open to the public, including a branch of Second Home's bookshop called Liberia, a restaurant, a café, a bar, outdoor terraces, conference hall and meeting rooms.
In Second Home Hollywood, instead of bringing the garden inside the office, they have brought the office out to the garden. This approximation to nature is not the only step towards a more sustainable living: plants reduce the temperature and provide shade; the clear façade eliminates the necessity of artificial lighting and has 3 operable openings for natural cross-ventilation. The transparent curved walls allow 360º horizontal views of the plants, giving the feeling to be working among nature.
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