Hercules Hangar Restoration

Location

Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California

Owner

Ratkovitch Co.

Architect

Studio 111

Project Size

248,000 SF

MATT Construction oversaw the adaptive reuse of four historic buildings at the Hughes Aircraft campus, including a pair of enormous, 88,000 sf aircraft hangars.

The buildings rest on a 28-acre site that formerly housed the headquarters, design and construction facilities for Hughes Aircraft. They are the last to be redeveloped and repurposed for the Ratkovich Company’s Hercules Campus in Playa Vista.

Early examples of glulam-beam construction, the two 740-foot long wooden hangars, longer than two football fields end-to-end, feature clear-span widths of 120 feet, with the arching beams reaching about seven stories above the floor at their highest point. The project team efficiently oversaw asbestos abatement, removed all interior walls and drywall down to the actual structure and stripped off all interior paint, restoring the hangars’ original configuration and natural, unfinished Douglas fir interiors.

In addition to the Hercules Hangar restoration, the project also included abatement of lead paint and asbestos in a smaller hangar and an auxiliary structure.

Photo Credit: Randall Michelson Photography and Linda Abbott Photography