CBRE Building in Newport Beach

By Trang Ly

The lobby in the CBRE Building in Newport Beach was renovated about 4-5 years ago by Gensler. As you first walk in, the lobby is open to the building’s 25’-30’ high ceiling. The use of columns and materials brings your eyes up to the skylight, which fills the lobby with lots of natural light. The entrance’s flooring material is a textured stone. We believe the material to be granite, with a flamed finish.

There are ramps alongside the windows and steps that lead to a seating area. As you move to the upper floor, the flooring transitions to a different pattern. Using the same granite, the pattern is arranged at different lengths and finishes: flamed, semi-glossy or matte, and glossy. The granite and finishes show a durable characteristic and scratch resistance, which makes this product excellent for the commercial space. It was also very easy to walk on and non-slippery.

[Entrance flooring]                          [Upper flooring]                       [Red-orangish granite]

Other products used in the building include a red-orangish marble on the rectangular columns, steel on circular columns, and wood on the panels of the lobby’s second floor facade. We don’t encounter many interiors that use marble and wood together like the CBRE lobby, so we speculate that the wooden panels replaced the previous material to update the building to a more modern style. These materials together bring a modern and formal environment.

One of the interesting things we noticed was the wall of the area leading to the elevator. The wall has glass tiles, from the previous design, which are hidden by chain mails after the renovation. It doesn’t look very heavy in visual texture to overwhelm the area. The chain went with the design yet stood out on its own.  It was an accent wall with LED wall washing the material. The chain mail has a hard touch, but it wasn’t stiff as a whole, which contrasted the other materials mentioned for an accent wall. It was a creative idea to cover the glass tiles rather than using a textile. It really adds to the sophisticated look brought throughout the lobby.

The lobby itself was an interesting case study and it had definitely brought on innovative ideas for us to possibly add into our designs. The project really helped us to think more of looking at the material, how it’s used and lasted, how to create zones in the space without using walls through transitioning, and how the materials are used together as a design material and esthetic.