CHANDELIER CREATIVE
James has known Richard since he started his now-famous creative agency, Chandelier Creative. They met when Richard started working with Club Monaco where James was the SVP in charge of store design and visual; they had an instant creative connection which was cemented by their love of the show Dynasty (to this day, Richard’s photo in James’ phone is of Joan Collins).
We have watched the office change and grow in the 15 years that James has known Richard, from the all-white office with a life-sized black plastic horse (James had a 40 foot scarf made for the horse as a Christmas present for the studio), to a more Memphis feeling. Richard now wanted a “grown up” and more designed space and called on JMS to help him.
We were a bit nervous as Richard knows every reference (and more). We once showed him a door handle to which he replied “Oh, that’s the Chiltren Firehouse”….he would not easily be impressed. So, we decided, for Chandelier, we would throw out the rule book and go big.
After working on three concepts for the office and whilst keeping in mind the large number of people all working on very different projects, it was determined that the space needed both meetings and the forums (which they had also become famous for), and the functionality of an office….where does the copy machine go, etc.
The first concept we called, “It’s Brutal”; loosely based on Scarpa and with a dash of Usha Doshi to keep it a bit more fun. The second was called “Shapes ” which was a more traditional office format (that didn’t go over so well) and the last concept was “Monumental F*ck You Statements” where we frankly and whimsically suggested that he paints everything white and spend all of the money on the most amazing piece of art to put at the front of the office. The “Its Brutal” concept with a dash of “Shapes” won out and we began the process of schematic design, materials and clay models of the space, which was largely based on a circle and inspiration derived from Carlo Scarpa.
While we were in the middle of the project, Richard decided to take a huge, brave leap and move almost all of his staff to Los Angeles where he was spending more time at his amazing house, Flamingo Estate. Even though the project was not realised, we loved working on this and wanted to share some of the design development that was produced for the project.
