Southern California has a proud and storied history in the aerospace industry dating all the way back to its first fumbling steps in 1910. Archibald Hoxsey – one of the members of the Wright brothers’ initial exhibition teams – broke record by reaching 11,500 feet in their powered fixed-wing aircraft on December 26, 1910, a mere 7 years after the Wrights made their initial flights.
Southern California was home to the country’s first international air show and produced one of the world’s most famous female fliers, Amelia Earhart. By the 1940’s, there were two million aerospace employees at work across the southland and the aerospace industry became a permanent fixture in the state’s landscape.
It’s no wonder, then, that the German aerospace communication company Mynaric decided to set up shop in Hawthorne in order to take advantage of the local talent and expand its engineering and production capabilities. Mynaric was the first company to produce laser communication from a jet platform and is working with companies such as SpaceX to develop applications for space flight and satellite communications.
As plentiful as the talent is in southern California, the equipment that talent needs to work efficiently is somewhat harder to get ahold of. Despite the lack of news coverage in recent weeks, supply shortages are still causing large delays for companies across a variety of industries, chief among them being furniture suppliers.
With this in mind, Mynaric enlisted the help of local office supplier Creative Office Design to acquire the necessary furnishings and design the office layout to accommodate the new hires. The German company was looking for an open floor design using modern contemporary furniture and fixtures to give the space-age look and feel they were hoping to instill in workers and visitors alike.
Unlike many suppliers, Creative Office Design had seen the shortages coming and had a number of quickship systems available for rapid deployment. To meet the modern contemporary design requirements, they selected the Elements series of office furniture to outfit the warehouse-like design of the building and set it to work.
Mynaric’s new building consisted of a variety of materials, from white-painted drywall to exposed brick, stainless steel ducts and support columns, wood beams and white sheet metal ceilings and a polished concrete floor. To match the existing woodwork in the building, Creative used a light wood paneling for the cabinetry, individual desks and tables for the break area.
For the shared open work space, white laminate was selected and accented with black steel legs and black cabinet toppers to provide a visual contrast. To complete the look, the collaborative benches were framed by frosted dividers and breakroom tables were given stainless steel support structures.
After installing the equipment and finishing it off with some jet black mesh office chairs for the work space and wood/steel stools and chairs for the break area, the work was completed. The German company was impressed with the speed and efficiency of the installation to the point that it contracted Creative Office Design to furnish the Arlington, Virginia office it was opening concurrently with its southern California branch.
This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between the two companies. Years later, it’s now in talks with Creative to help design an expanded Hawthorne office that is in the process of doubling its current workforce. Working together, the companies could create the space age workspace Mynaric needed to blast away into a bright future!
