Creative Environment

The folks at Pittard Sullivan spend their days helping such clients as the CBS Network and Fox Family Channel get noticed, so it was only fitting that partners Billy Pittard and Ed Sullivan would look for dramatic, eye-catching surroundings when they moved from generic offices in Hollywood to custom-designed quarters in Culver City.

“We were looking for a space that would be a catalyst to creativity,” Pittard said, explaining that the company designs and produces TV commercials, on-air promotions, on-screen titles, Web pages, posters and other forms of marketing communications for a roster of Hollywood clients that includes 20 of the TV shows now airing in prime time.

Pittard Sullivan turned to Culver City architect Eric Owen Moss, who converted a series of industrial buildings into a 50,000-square-foot adventure in shapes and spaces.

The adventure begins outside, where a huge chunk of structure--housing an upstairs conference room--overhangs the roof at an angle. One of the building’s most popular spaces, it has been dubbed “The Cube.” Old wooden bow trusses protrude dramatically from the sides of the building.

Inside, Moss fashioned what he calls “a variety of spatial experiences” designed to be practical as well as inspirational. They range from high and open with plenty of natural light to sequestered and private. A large gallery runs down the middle of the office, serving as a major passageway and also as a place to display posters, artwork, sculpture and samples of Pittard Sullivan’s work.

“Our intention was to create a space that communicates invention, openness and curiosity, both to those who visit it as well as to clients and the staff who work there,” Moss said.

Pittard says the space succeeds as Moss intended because it works in the same way as the Pittard Sullivan designers, artists and other creative types.

“Our best work is the result of serendipity and spontaneity that results from people collaborating, both formally and informally,” he said. “There are meeting rooms here that you can book, but there are also more casual spaces throughout the building where people can meet more spontaneously.”

Does the design make a practical difference? Pittard is emphatic that it does.

“We were in a nice office building before, but it was an office building. I don’t think of this as an office, I think of it as creative space,” he said.