Project: Warner Bros building
Location: Burbank, CA, USA
Architecture: Gehry Partners; Frank Gehry (partner in charge), Tensho Takemori (managing partner), David Nam (design partner), Heather Waters (project architect), Meaghan Lloyd (partner/chief of staff)
Curtain wall: Curtain Wall Design & Consulting, INC.
Structural consultant: Englekirk
Civil engineer: Psomas
Elevator consultant: HKA Elevator Consulting, Inc.
Facade access consultant: Lerch Bates
Lighting consultant: Kaplan Gehring McCarroll
MEP/FP engineer: ARC Engineering
Landscape architect: OJB Landscape Architecture
Acoustical consultant: Newson Brown
Code consultant: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, Inc.
Hardware consultant: Finish Hardware Technology
Contractor: Krismar Construction
Photogramph: Tim Hursley
LA architecture studio Gehry Partners has completed the extension of media company Warner Bros' headquarters in Burbank, which juxtaposes two distinctive facade styles.
Called Second Century Burbank, the Gehry Partners-designed complex contains additional offices and studios for the headquarters, which is flanked by a major highway and the studio lot.
Second Century Burbank is divided into two large blocks connected by a two-storey volume that is topped by a landscaped courtyard. The offices and studios are intended for use by Warner Bros and its potential tenants.
For the facades, Gehry Partners married two distinct designs. The first consists of sloping curtain walls with a white frit.
These are used across the building's highway-facing elevations and have an "icy white appearance" intended to evoke the form of icebergs.
On the side facing the studio lot, these curtain walls are interspersed with steel facades with punched windows modelled on the art deco-style buildings of early Hollywood.
"For the glass facades, we adopted the image of icebergs for the dynamic angled geometry of their vertical faces," Gehry Partners told Dezeen.
"As a counterpoint, we imagined metal volumes embedded within the crystalline glass forms," the studio continued.
"We wanted the articulation of the metal facades to convey a historic industrial feel, a throwback to Hollywood's bygone era when the architecture of the movie studios symbolized the grandeur of their ambitions."
Beyond these references, the different facade types also indicate the interior programmes.
The glass sections house the more collaborative workplaces while the metal sections contain the more private executive offices.
Gehry Partners' design also responds to the structure's proximity to the busy highway.
On the south end of the building's sloping site, the curtain wall is designed to minimise noise from the motorway while providing visual interest for drivers.
This is where the image of the iceberg is most visible, and where the visual effect of the fractured geometries of the iceberg work best.