A sleek high-rise skyscraper in the heart of downtown Los Angeles designed by Marmol Radziner opened its doors recently to tenants. Beaudry is a 64-story skyscraper clad in a somber palette that anchors 960 West 7th Street, adding a new prolific tower to the ever-growing Los Angeles skyline. 

Local firm Marmol Radziner took on a number of design roles for the project, acting as the design architect, interior designer, and landscape architect. The firm worked with project developer Brookfield Properties. Beaudry’s dark materiality creates a “complementary juxtaposition” to the lighter exteriors of its neighbors in the city’s financial core, the architects said.

In total, Beaudry reaches 600 feet and offers 785 residential rental units with 5,500 square feet of commercial space. The architects chose a minimalist approach in the luxury tower’s design—an ethos long championed by the studio since its inception over thirty years ago. “Our design is inspired by a Modernist tradition. It is a simple expression of the building’s program, materiality, and structure,” said Leo Marmol, managing partner at Marmol Radziner. 

Ron Radziner, a design partner at Marmol Radziner, added: “The building is integrated with the adjacent streetscape and existing retail plaza, with an emphasis on its connection to the neighborhood and pedestrians. Together with the two existing office towers that flank the retail plaza, the new tower transforms the plaza into an outdoor room available to the neighborhood residents.”

At Beaudry, rental units boast balconies, operable windows, and generous outdoor space in order to give tenants access to the city’s temperate climate. Marmol Radziner noted that the balconies double as aesthetic choices that add a horizontal element to an otherwise rather vertical facade design.

The interiors and landscape design reference the work of Southern California–based artists and craftsmen, the architects continued. Beaudry’s furnishings are custom-made straight from Marmol Radziner’s in-house wood and metal shop. Units have hand-knotted rugs made by Christopher Farr. Art is dispersed throughout the tower by other California artists, including Andrew Dadson, Mary Little, and John Wigmore. Works by Joe Goode, John Baldessari, Lita Albuquerque, and Mary Weatherford, thanks to a fruitful collaboration with the legendary Cirrus Gallery.

“Conceptually, the building itself is a vertical expression of the horizontal modernist aesthetic that Marmol Radziner is so well known for,” said Erika Montes, Marmol Radziner’s interiors studio director. “Classic mid-century modernist materials like travertine, walnut, and bronze give the space a dramatic, earthy feel, seamlessly connecting the exterior to the interior.”