Sunday, April 19, 1998

Offices recycle planes, trains and automobiles as unique furnishings

By LISA J. ADAMS / Associated Press

NEW YORK -- When Foote, Cone & Belding decided to decorate its new offices with a New York theme, the advertising firm faced a logistical hurdle: How to get a taxi into the elevator.

An old yellow Checker cab was just one of the recycled props the company sought out in its quest to build an office environment that would better reflect the creativity of its employees and its products.

Used Yankee Stadium seats, refinished Central Park benches and manhole covers from the local utility were others. FCB is also buying a subway car and plans to convert it into an employee lunchroom.

"We wanted to celebrate the city, the type of work that we do, and just the whole unique feeling of New York," said Vonda LePage, a spokeswoman for the firm whose high-profile clients include AT&T, Campbell's Soup Co., Nabisco, and Kraft Foods.

The explosive growth of media-related companies and a new generation of employees raised on technology are inspiring employers to turn a more creative eye toward their office space.

"With technology, the barriers of conservatism are being torn down," said Stanley Felderman, of the architectural interior design firm Felderman + Keatinge Associates in Santa Monica, Calif.

"I feel that younger people are having more of an impact on the work environment," he said. "Technology means change. ... We cannot work in environments that are long-term static environments. They must be flexible."

The creative energy of Felderman and business partner Nancy Keatinge pulsates through the MTV West Coast headquarters in Santa Monica.

Inside the building's large, oval lobby, a 17-foot-long 1957 Airstream trailer beckons clients into a retro world of pink carpeting and black and white linoleum accented by a Formica-topped kitchen table and a pink poodle magazine rack.

The trailer, which doubles as a waiting area and meeting room, sits on a green AstroTurf "lawn," next to a blue AstroTurf "lake." Fake pink flamingos stand serenely amid vintage aluminum lawn chairs.

"There are a number of young, hip ... companies that are staffed by people who rarely get out of their jeans or T-shirt, never punch a time clock, don't care about many of the concerns that the average wage earner has," said Michael Webb, a contributing editor to Interiors and Metropolis magazines and the author of two books on architecture and design.

"So for those people the typical work environment with regulation desks and work stations ... and a coffee machine in the corner is neither adequate nor appropriate. They're the ones who are writing the new language and designing the new kind of office."

At Windmill Lane Productions, a commercial production company located in a former airplane parts factory in Santa Monica, wing flaps from decommissioned B-52 bombers serve as room dividers, ejection seats have been converted into office chairs, and tables in the building are made from old instrument panels.

The warplane theme is both a reflection of the firm's unorthodox creations and its mission, said commercial director and company co-founder Meiert Avis.

"Part of what we do is more or less psychological warfare as a media production company," he said. "We're tying to influence the way people think. ... America's trying to bomb the rest of the world into the 21st Century."

But consulting junkyards and air bases instead of office furniture catalogs can be as complicated as it is creative.

Avis and partner Ben Dossett, an executive producer, originally wanted to buy whole B-52 wings -- until they realized that they were about 200 to 300 feet long.

"We would have had to reconstruct the Santa Monica Freeway," Dossett said.

As it was, the company had to hire a contractor to haul the 75-foot-long wing flaps.

An architectural firm was brought in to arrange the old military hardware -- which Dossett and Avis bought for $2 a pound -- so that it would work best for employees, have maximum visual impact and withstand earthquakes.

Freelance researcher Chris Penberthy snagged the authentic New York City taxi for FCB's lobbies -- she found one in a New Jersey junkyard -- and then wrestled its bulky carcass into the building.

"First we cut the car in half, then in quarters, because we couldn't get the halves through the door either," said Penberthy, who also scouts out props for motion picture sets.

The front end of the cab, retaining a couple of authentic dents and sporting a parking ticket under its windshield wiper, protrudes from a wall in the 12th-floor reception area of FCB's office on 42nd Street. The back half, with taillights constantly lit, is on the floor below.

Penberthy got the cab for $3,500 -- a bargain price that also included the cost of some minor body work, repainting, cutting up the car and delivery.

Also on the 12th floor, a city trash can turned on end -- opening down, base up -- is used as a small table. To complete the scenario, FCB decorated the area with used ice cream and hot dog carts -- after evicting the roaches.

In addition to her foray into the junkyard, Penberthy scoured art and transportation museums, municipal offices, utility companies and antique stores to fulfill FCB's New York City fantasy.

"I found this wacky little guy in New Jersey who has a mail-order business selling subway memorabilia," Penberthy said. "I went to upwards of 20 different places."

While it may take more energy, time and money to replace conventional office fixtures with cabs, bomber wings and trailers, LePage said the "Wow!" factor makes it worthwhile.

"When clients walk in for the first time, I think they say, 'Wow, what is this cab doing here? Does it work?'

"We want them to say, 'This is a fun place to work,' and we want our people to think that way, too. You wouldn't find a taxi cab in the reception area of a law firm."