Construction is completing on the Renovation of the 900 Wilshire Building a Class A medical and Creative Office Building, in Santa Monica, California.

Key innovative pandemic responsive renovation features of this project that promote health and wellness of the workplace:

• Floor to ceiling glazing completely opens the workplace to the surrounding environment.
• Glazed multiple balcony access allows for fresh air into the interiors, key to the pandemic era workplace.
• Balconies allow for casual workspaces outdoors, and access to fresh air and views, also key to the pandemic era workspace.
• A dramatic cantilevered veranda designed to frame the picture perfect California sunset over the Pacific horizon, creating an atmospheric connection with nature.
• An architectural composition using glazed frames on the building’s North and West facing façades directs views to the mountains and the Ocean, creating environmental awareness to the building users.
• Willfully angled glazed façade plane welcomes visitors to building’s entry, engaging the visitors.
• Double oculus over building entry frames the California sky, creating a poetic connection with the sky above for the users.

Developed by STERLING REAL ESTATE GROUP, LLC and designed by Struere, the project includes a major rebranding and repositioning of an existing 4-story building at the corner of Wilshire and 9th Street in Santa Monica, and is a major step in the current revival of the Wilshire Boulevard corridor East of 3rd Street, expanding the Santa Monica Promenade urban walk by creating landmark buildings, destinations and an enhanced pedestrian experience along Wilshire further east. The project’s scope is a complete re-skinning of the 29,875 SF existing building’s main facades, addition of slightly less than 1,000 SF of new office space and renovation of the building’s main Lobby,

The Office building is clad in high performance glazing units and is completely opened to the city, the entire building will become an aperture: a window framing views to the Mountains on the North and to the Ocean Horizon to the West. 

The design concept is to open up the Building’s Interior Spaces to the surrounding environment and make the building users connect with the outdoors, in an effort to enhance the wellness quality of the interior workplace.

Large expanses of new floor to ceiling glazing on the North façade open up views to the Santa Monica Mountains. Similarly, large expanses of new floor to ceiling glass on a significant portion of the West Façade open up views to Santa Monica Beach and the Ocean Horizon. The building with its framed glazed surfaces becomes an aperture to capture nature: the mountains on one side and the ocean on the other side.

By placing emphasis on transparency, a workplace environment that privileges communications and synergy is suggested, which is in tune with the style of workplace preferred by technology companies.

The Santa Monica Workplace in particular is blessed with gorgeous views of the Sunset on the Pacific Ocean. The design attempts to capture and celebrate the Santa Monica Sunset in a number of ways. At the Northwest corner of the building, a dramatically cantilevered balcony, a viewing veranda is created to frame a ‘picture window’ to allow users to capture the Sunset Views.

Linear perimeter balconies easily accessible from the workplace affect a blurring of the building perimeter which is the proposed architectural solution for the renovation. These (weather protected but open air) balconies become outdoor casual workspaces, effectuating a connection of the workspace to the outdoors. Glazed balcony doors allow for fresh air to come into the workspace.

A large segment of the glazed façade along Wilshire is angled. This angled glazed segment, like a sail refers to the ocean nearby. Or like an open hand, it directs one to the Building’s main entrance.

The Building’s new glazed surfaces are framed with a deep continuous cornice element that defines the building’s profile against the sky and provides a modicum of sun protection. The cornice element frames the glazed surfaces from both vertical and horizontal sides, and seems to protect it the way a boat’s edges protect it against the waves.

Similar to a boat floating on the ocean the framed glazed façade is lifted from the ground above the second story.

The fully glazed main building facades with their dramatic metallic frames extending the building’s edges and engaging the views give the building a landmark presence at this important intersection.

The strong linear composition of the building’s Wilshire façade traces the superlinear urban condition of Wilshire.

An exposed colonnade and the glazing at the building’s base and the welcoming warm Lobby enliven the pedestrian experience along Wilshire. A dramatic double oculus opening into the camnopies over the entry frames a view to the California sky prior to entering the building.