City Labs Boyle Heights transformed an existing industrial warehouse into a flexible workspace for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and community organizations, preserving the character of the original structure. The program connected the warehouse with an existing office building to create six tenant suites, a shared conference room, lobby, kitchen/lounge, IT room, and two ADA-compliant restrooms. The lobby was designed as an extension of the adjacent parking court through a pair of glazed overhead doors, allowing the space to function as an indoor-outdoor gathering area for community events and weekend programming.
A primary design challenge was introducing daylight into the deep warehouse floor plate, which had little natural light beyond two existing skylights and the original roll-up doors, further complicated by the differing ceiling heights between the warehouse and office structures. The solution established an 8'-6" plywood-clad datum that organized the new interior spaces while preserving the scale of the existing warehouse; above it, translucent polygal panels admitted borrowed daylight deep into the plan while accommodating the varying roof heights. New glazed garage doors further increased daylight, natural ventilation, and the visual connection between interior and exterior gathering spaces.