Juniorswear Line Moves Into Sustainably Renovated HQ
After a year-and-a-half-long renovation project, Fire, the juniors brand owned by Topson Downs, has moved into its new eco-friendly Culver City, Calif., headquarters. The company, which previously had offices one mile away in Los Angeles, made the move, along with Topson Downs, to 3840 Watseka Ave. in December. The new building, which once housed a phone company but had sat abandoned for nearly a decade, underwent an extensive and pointedly environmentally conscious renovation.
Andrew Strasmore, president of Fire, said being “green” can be a challenge in the fashion industry. “Keeping our carbon-emissions footprint to a minimum and caring about the future of our environment is something we’ve personally found challenging in the fashion industry. It’s a good thing at the end of the day to be able to stand out in that regard, and it’s something that we take great pride in,” he said in a statement.
Featuring solar panels, recycled building materials and energy-efficient structural upgrades, water-conserving fixtures, skylights that provide 30 percent of lighting, LED lighting, and materials sourced from within 500 miles of the structure, the renovated building is being considered for the United States Green Building Council’s LEED gold certification. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification is given to buildings that promote sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.
The companies are also investing in renewable-energy credits to offset 100 percent of the building’s power usage. To guide the more-than $4 million renovation project and to help Fire and Topson Downs as they strive to be more environmentally conscious, Topson Downs brought in Brock Seyler as director of sustainability. Seyler worked with architect Cosimo Pizzulli of Pizzulli Associates in Santa Monica, Calif., and Green Dinosaur, Los Angeles–based green building consultants, to gut the building and reinvent it as an eco-friendly and sustainable home for both companies. “The project took longer than we planned, but the end result is worth it,” he said.
Rather than tear down the existing structure—and therefore send the waste to landfills—the stand-alone building was refurbished from the ground up and stripped of lead paint and asbestos. Windows were upgraded to double-paned, insulated glass. A layer of polyurethane foam insulates the roof, reducing the amount of heat absorbed by the building. Architect Pizzulli opted for building materials that are rapidly renewable, certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, or include recycled or regional content.
Low-tech and high-tech measures meet in the new Fire headquarters. Reclaimed stone, corkboard and sunflower board walls are paired with the most extensive use of LED lighting in Southern California and roof-mounted solar panels that provide approximately 5 percent of the building’s total electrical power. The combined effects of the upgrades are expected to reduce the company’s overall energy usage by 30 percent this year, Seyler said. The building also consumes 40 percent less water than a traditional building of the same size.
Having invested so much in being eco-friendly, Topson Downs has plans to expand its green efforts into other parts of its business. Seyler is now turning his attention to working with the company’s overseas factories to make sure that they meet environmental guidelines. “We’re looking for ways to improve our supply chain” and expand the private-label manufacturer’s use of organic and recycled fabrics, he said.
