First look at flashy new Playa Vista office space with functional ‘skin’

The final piece of the office space puzzle that is Playa Vista’s Water’s Edge complex will feature a functional “skin” of corrugated aluminum. Those panels will mute the “full brunt” of the glassy office building, says SPF:architects.

The architecture firm released new renderings Monday of the new building, called WE3. It’s the third building at the Water’s Edge office complex at Jefferson and Lincoln boulevards, a stone’s throw from the Ballona Wetlands.

When complete in April 2020, WE3 will hold 160,000 square feet of offices across six stories, with four of the floors devoted to “open workspace.” The first two floors, plus an underground garage, will be dedicated to parking. The new building will also feature a terrace and a “sky garden.”

One of the tech-heavy neighborhoods that collectively make up Silicon Beach, Playa Vista continues to be an in-demand spot for offices.

Google is expected to move into its huge airplane hangar—once home to Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose—this fall. Frank Gehry designed a new structure in Playa Vista that will house his own architecture firm’s new offices when complete.

The developers of WE3 are Rockwood Capital and GIC Private Limited. Rockwood, in partnership with Marshall Property Development, bought the whole Water’s Edge complex in February for $190 million, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.

• Prominent L.A. developer to build unconventional office at Playa Vista [LA Times]
• Google will finally move into its huge Playa Vista hangar this fall [Curbed LA]
• New Beatrice West: New renderings of Frank Gehry-designed Playa Vista office building [Curbed LA]