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"We were
 trying
to break away from Playboy's connotations," says New York-based
architect John Keenen about the new Playboy TV Inter-national offices
in South Beach. (The company, a joint venture of Playboy Entertainment
and Cisneros Television Group, develops TV networks around the world.)
Keenen, who also designed the Cisneros Group's Miami offices, says
he was given free rein to interpret the South Beach program.
Visitors walking
down the hall toward the sixth-floor Playboy office see an antiseptic-looking
reception area through a glass wall. "For better or for worse, we
wanted the approach to this very shiny white area to jolt you past
any preconceived notions about the company," says Keenen. Inside
the office, white is every-where--from the gridded ceiling of frosted
luminous Plexiglas panels to the glossy Formica custom furnishings.
The whiteness gains even more wattage from the Florida sunlight
that floods the floor.
A David Hockney
painting of a swimming pool, which hangs above a couch in the reception
area, is the first element to interrupt the austere flow. five shades
of blue standard-grade commercial carpeting break up the individual
of˝ces. The carpeting appears again on the conference room's "hairy
wall," which permits illicit peeks through the gaps between its
panels. The wall is one of the few overtly suggestive winks that
the space makes.
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