The west coast operation of London-based auction house Phillips has a new home courtesy of Los Angeles’ Formation Association.

Their West Hollywood design was unveiled recently and features a remodeled series of existing structures that includes three showrooms, a covered patio, and offices set amongst a bespoke covering of ficus trees.

A rounded marquee greets visitors to the main showroom’s Santa Monica Boulevard entrance, punctuated by an overhead oculus and encased in a heavy gray dash stucco material that conjures the "textures of workaday local building materials in a sculpted manner [while] lending a distinctly southern California identity to the architectural treatment."

Inside, a sequence of light-filled gallery spaces begins with the largest Showroom A, which is framed by a soffit ceiling and features a second oculus that plays host to an exposed silver-painted exposed wood frame in homage to both Gordon Matta-Clark and Richard Neutra. 

Per the architects: "At the back of the gallery, a bookshelf and reading nook beckon visitors to sit, read, and research. A set of stairs and an ADA ramp rises to the very back of the building, where a set of double doors opens to a small office that will function as a client meeting room. This space leads to a generous outdoor patio."

"The 3/4 interior walls of the patio are stained plywood that matches the grey of the siding / stucco exterior, and the fourth wall separating the patio from the client meeting room will remain as a stucco finish (also grey). The architects retained a skylight from the original building and inserted three picture windows of varied scale high on the wall that faces the street."

"We started with idiosyncratic conditions and buildings layered with history," the firm’s principal and founder, John K. Chan, said of the finished product. "We wanted to keep that sensibility. The building is a varied palimpsest, with traces of the past appearing within the new facade."