Firm takes L.A. by storm, landing major studio jobs.

An architectural firm that's been in Los Angeles less than 18 months has managed to land one of the biggest design jobs in town: designing two large buildings for 20th Century Fox's studio lot in West Los Angeles.

But that's not all. The L.A. office of HLW International LLP has picked up major projects from four major studios - Fox, Warner Bros., Universal Studios Inc. and DreamWorks SKG - all in the same short span.

HLW's design work for Fox gave the firm credibility with other studios, said Jim Suhr, former vice president of office services for Warner Bros, and currently director of assets strategy for Disney Imagineering.

"The culture of the studios is a hard thing to pick up," Suhr said. "It's the intangibles of working around sound stages that are actively in production and red-light delays and other things that are specific to studio lots that you don't find in other construction areas."

While HLW is new to town, it did not have a cold start. The 111-year-old New York firm has experience in a wide range of building types, particularly projects with complex requirements, such as broadcast entertainment facilities and financial-service offices. The trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange is based on one of the firm's designs.

A long-standing relationship with Rupert Murdoch, the media titan who oversees Fox through News Corp., was HLW's ticket to Los Angeles. Six years ago, the New York office undertook a new master plan for the Fox studio lot, as well as historic renovation of 75 backlot structures.

In July 1995, Michael White, at that time a six-year veteran with HLW who is still in his mid-30s, arrived in Los Angeles to open the firm's local office. Shortly after, Fox commissioned HLW to design the 200,000-square-foot executive building for Fox Inc., and the 250,000-square-foot building for Fox Broadcasting Co.

The buildings broke ground in February 1996 and both are slated for completion in 1998.

The broadcasting building will be the "brain center" of the TV network, according to White, containing studios for Fox Sports, f/X, and the Fox Kids Network, as well as the company's cable and satellite operations.

While 2.5 years from groundbreaking to completion is not an unusually short time for a conventional office complex, "it was an extraordinarily short amount of time to build a building of this complexity," said White, who maintained that the Fox broadcast building "contains one of the most sophisticated broadcast facilities in the world."

The design work includes all the wiring and other technical requirements for a functioning broadcast studio.

Timing is a critical issue in building entertainment facilities, and the ability to meet deadlines is a point of sale for the firm. "We have a good reputation for doing sophisticated projects on short time frames," said White.

Early in 1996, Warner Bros. decided it needed a dubbing stage completed in time to start dubbing dialogue on the live action-plus-animation feature. "Space Jam." The deadline was October 1996. "The building absolutely had to be finished at that time," White recalled, a feat which HLW accomplished by completing construction in 16 weeks, from start to finish.

"An entertainment building is a production-driven project. The movie production schedule is the driver of the project," White said.

Officials at Malpaso Productions, an independent production company with offices on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, took note of HLW's work on the dubbing studio, and hired HLW to design its offices. DreamWorks SKG also hired the firm to design corporate offices for two "creative groups." while Universal Music Group, a unit of Universal Studios, hired HLW to design a 1,200-square-foot office.

Today, the firm has 30 employees, making it a mid-sized firm, but still far smaller than the corporate-style firms that get major commercial jobs. White said being comparatively small has its advantages.

"We are big enough to do work quickly and small enough to stay on top of it and give personal attention to projects that evolve on an hour-by-hour basis," he said.

A Fox construction executive describes HLW as "responsive" in situations with constantly changing requirements. "We are designing as we are building, so we need to have a certain rapport with the design firm," said William J. Murphy, director of planning and construction at Fox Studios.

HLW, he added, has been "very good at working with the client, as the client has evolved. We have gone through a terrific growth period, and they have adapted to that and responded very well."

One moving target was the design of the Fox Inc. executive building, which had to be reconfigured several times to accommodate the company's ongoing acquisitions and consolidations.

HLW looks to expand the bi-coastal experience with Fox. The firm began working for Fox in New York, designing several studios and office facilities for the "f/X Morning" show, and then was hired to design Fox's West L.A. buildings. Now the firm hopes to replicate that scenario with other entertainment companies.

"Clients with whom we work in New York can become those with whom we work in L.A. Those are the two entertainment hubs in the country," White said.