Complete architectural and interior renovation of two iconic office buildings on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood.

The idea is to enhance the existing iconic architecture with important additions and modifications that radically transform the buildings but work organically with the existing features, reinforcing their original image in a re-envisioned architectural composition.

9229 Sunset was designed by Victor Gruen Associates in 1960; 9255 Sunset was designed by Palmer & Krisel in1962. Both buildings became part of the important legacy of midcentury Sunset Blvd architecture. We recognize it and respect it. Rather than replacing the image of these buildings with one alien to it, we opt for a strategy of surgical intervention and allow the new design to grow seamlessly out of the existing architecture compromised in the 80’ and 90’ by multiple inconsiderate alterations.

• We preserved and enhanced the iconic image of the main volumes “floating” on Sunset Blvd above the podiums.

• Sophisticated fragments of steel and structural glass architecture replace the heavy chunky crumbling canopies and old storefronts.
• New refined book-match carrara marble skin, for both podiums, continues seamlessly inside the lobbies and introduces a cohesive identity to both buildings. All the new surfaces are trimmed with s/s plate.
• 210’ long backlit translucent channel glass box stretches along Sunset Blvd from the corner all the way over the driveway separating the buildings: here the new massive cantilevered truss becomes the iconic portal of ?the NINE TWO TOWERS complex.
• The renovated driveway flanked by the new book-match marble skin is now the grand vehicular entrance.
• The parking structure at the end of the driveway is revitalized with a stupendous 4 story high living vertical garden visible from the street; this is the main feature of the new patio/ garden created in the hart of the complex which establishes a new communal place for all the tenants partially covered by a high glass canopy between the parking and the 9255 building.
• The patio and the renovated lobbies feature a unique palladiana carrara marble floor.
• The new City National Bank lobby volume is a delicate composition of bypassing sheets of glass with s/s fins reaching to the sky.
• The backlit traslucent channel glass shroud floating on top of the 9229 tower is rotated to enhance the break between the volumes and to dramatize the perspective view driving down Sunset Blvd. As a beacon it identifies the end of Sunset Strip driving from West Hollywood.
• At the back, the 22’ tall channel glass sinuous wall springs from inside the City National Bank lobby emphasizing the new architectural language along Doheny Dr.