Mitsubishi Design Center Revamp Ready for Cars of the Future; Color Studio is Next Project for Interior Design Firm

CYPRESS, Calif.--Aug. 1, 20034, 2003--It's the fastest growing Japanese car company in America and home of some of the hippest TV commercials around. Yet Mitsubishi Motors' designers were in need of an atmosphere more conducive to sustaining the company's creative best.

Mitsubishi handed the challenge of updating and reconfiguring the 10,000 square-foot Mitsubishi Research and Design Studio in Cypress, Calif., to H. Hendy Associates, an Irvine, Calif.-based interior design and planning firm, which recently completed the project.

Because of security concerns, project construction took place mostly after hours and on weekends on an almost impossible schedule of only three weeks!

So pleasing were the results, H. Hendy Associates has been commissioned to provide a similar update for the Mitsubishi Color Studio, which encompasses 2,000 square feet of presentation, library and designer workstations for those who design the cars' interiors (designers of the exteriors work in the Design Studio). Completion is expected in early September.

Without room to expand, H. Hendy Associates had to redesign the company's creative hub to accommodate additional automobile designers and CAD operators and to design a space that cultivates creativity in which Mitsubishi's cars of the future could be conceived. The Design Studio encompasses full-scale clay modeling and 3D computer graphics workstations.

The scope of the project included planning and executing the interior design, creating the furniture and finishings specifications, and selecting the furnishings.

"One of the challenges of the project was to find materials that were durable enough to withstand the daily wear and tear of the automobile designers' tools, but also provided the appropriate aesthetic for the designer," said Dan Ringler, project designer for H. Hendy Associates.

"We specified a fluid, progressive, unconventional type of furniture workstation based on a 120-degree module to emphasize this aesthetic. A refreshing, crisp color palette of whites and grays serves as an unobtrusive backdrop for the designers' color studies."

Daniel Sims, design director for Mitsubishi Motors, stated, "H. Hendy understood our need to update the image of our design studio and was successful at achieving the look we desired. We look forward to their work on the next phase of the project: our color studio."

Founded in 1979, H. Hendy Associates is ranked among the Top 100 interior designers nationwide by Interior Design magazine. The firm specializes in interior space analysis, planning and design for corporate offices and headquarters, call centers, automotive design studios, biotech and medical facilities, and retail and hospitality projects.