Convene Collaborates with HOK and Gensler on Two Co-Working Spaces in Los Angeles

Over the last decade, Convene has established its signature event and work spaces up and down the East Coast, including locations in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. When it came time to establish a West Coast presence, the co-working specialist’s in-house design team knew from experience that collaboration is key, and so they enlisted the help of two titans, HOK and Gensler, on a pair of Los Angeles projects.

First up: two floors of a 1980s office building downtown, at Wells Fargo Center. HOK softened the sprawling 47,000-square-foot interior with Scandi-chic furnishings to create a hospitality-inflected hub that can accommodate 500. “We established a strong architectural datum while introducing a vocabulary of softly curved ceiling elements,” explains Convene head of design and construction Brian Tolman.

One mile away, the brand’s outpost at 777 Tower, a Brookfield Properties building, offers a more art deco-inspired environment. The design of the 20,000-square-foot, ninth-floor space was spearheaded by Gensler. The goal, Tolman says, was “to bring an unbuttoned elegance to a very formal building by introducing modest materiality and bold palettes.” Not to mention a massive “art tube” ceiling mural spanning a hallway that, in a perfect bit of symbolism, connects one common area facing the city’s historic district with another, overlooking new developments.