A High-Rise Alternative That’s Simple, Sensitive

Sometimes I think that the sprawl of Los Angeles might not be that bad.

After all, as large corporations break down or decentralize and electronic communications take over, we have become increasingly flexible in our work patterns. We are no longer that tied to factories or large office buildings.

This coming global village may give some of us the choice of living and working someplace real and beautiful--like, say, Malibu. That is at least what Malibu architect Ron Goldman believes, and four years ago he designed, developed and built a structure to prove his point.

His 20,000-square-foot office building at 24955 Pacific Coast Highway houses not only his own office, but entrepreneurs, lawyers, physical therapists and nonprofit groups. This is a community of people whose work is too complex to do at home but who want to remain outside the grids of the city.

Goldman’s building replaces the faraway metropolis with a miniature city that terraces up the barren hills above Pacific Coast Highway. The project is essentially two long buildings split by the presence of an earthquake fault, over which nothing may be constructed. Yet each office has its own identity.

Some are gabled glass greenhouses, others are sheds with curved roofs. Glass rectangles hide behind stucco screens or reveal themselves as glass-and-metal assemblages. Each of these forms sits on two tile-covered platforms that serve as communal terraces. The whole composition is tied together by a concrete-colored stucco screen that gives the building a unified image while providing shade from the western sun.

The effect is a little harsh and industrial. Monochrome colors contribute to this feeling, as does the abstraction of the forms. This building might ramble, but it does not present a very diverse character.

Goldman essentially designed a facade that faces Pacific Coast Highway. As a result, the sides and rear of the complex are rather dreary and disconnected from their surroundings, while the quasi-concrete skin tends to read as a thin mask trying to keep its unruly tenants under control.

An apparent desire to make the building seem non-threatening prevents the design from coming together. I always think it’s a bad sign when an architect feels he has to prop up a big, abstract arch to tell us where to enter.

On the other hand, the use of native plants and the tightness of the small courtyard between the different parts create an atmosphere that is neither falsely cozy nor wind-swept. And when the afternoon sun lights up the aluminum panels and sinks into the rough stucco texture, the building comes alive, much as the beach below and the hills above display their respective textures when they are raked by light.

Goldman seems to have hit on a new type of building here: In an increasingly decentralized landscape in which mini-malls are replacing department stores and supermarkets, in which clinics stand in for hospitals, and in which condominiums line the boulevard where houses once stood, we may soon be seeing more of these miniature office compounds. I just hope that at least some of them will be as simple and sensitive as 24955 Pacific Coast Highway.