GNOMON - North Hollywood Campus

Back in 2021, it was decided that Gnomon was going to explore the idea of a new campus. Over the course of a few months, we visited many possible locations all over Los Angeles, from north Burbank to Culver City, but ultimately settled on North Hollywood. The NohoWest development complex was recently completed and offered a ton of amenities, while being centrally located; an important criteria for both our students and instructors.

Once negotiations had settled, we were set to build a 45,000 sqft campus across three floors with a blank slate. The space was completely empty with no walls, just columns every 25 feet and 20 foot high ceilings. I spent most of 2023 designing the entire campus in Maya & Unreal, from the floor plans (where walls go, classroom layouts, offices, lounges, etc), to the placement of every single print of student work, movie poster, light fixture, wall screens, and so on. Prior to my work in 3D, I did enlist the help of my friend Greg Downing to scan all of the old campus. Having accurate scans in Maya/Unreal at correct scale of all of our furniture, classrooms, sculptures, etc was a huge help for initial planning. I also brought on my friend Jonathan Berube who came up with some very cool design ideas for the outdoor patios and reception area, many of which made it to the final build.

I then supervised construction with the architects and primary contractor, Dempsey. Construction started in August of 2023 and completed in July of 2024. While a ton of work, it was a once in a lifetime experience for me. As someone who had designed Gnomon’s old campus, but gradually over 25 years, this was a daunting task. Doing something this big all at once was exciting and stressful but, ultimately, super rewarding. Seeing my renders become real was surreal. While in hindsight the experience was a blur of work, I am quite proud of the end result and happy that our staff, students and teachers have responded so positively to the move. We will always miss Television Center, our original home… a 100 year old studio lot that was full of character and history. But change is the way of things, and this one was necessary to support the needs of our community. I think it turned out pretty cool.

Below are the floorplans, many of the renders I produced in late 2022 as I wrapped up the design phase, shots of the site when we were scoping it out, then photos of construction and finally a few photos of the end result. :)