A single story former delivery truck storage building in the Williamsburg district of Brooklyn has been converted by New York firm Neil Logan Architect into a new retail space for street-ware design brand Supreme. The clear open volume is filled with natural light from square skylights, one centered in each bay subdividing the space. Garage doors were replaced by a horizontal incision grafted into the brick façade containing a central pair of doors and a large piece of fixed glass serving as the storefront.
“Overt design features were suppressed in favor of the ‘almost nothing’ approach,” said the studio .Brick walls inside were cleaned off, but the decades of paint layers were largely left intact. Other additions include concrete flooring and white concrete walls in the front retail area.
The skate bowl, a self-supporting site-specific installation was designed and built by Steven Bladgett of the art collective Simparch. The bowl’s complex geometric form was fabricated with the aid of CNC technology. Made entirely from Baltic birch plywood, the bowl was shop-fabricated in Chicago, delivered to the site, installed and finished by the art collective. An expanded metal wall, aligned with the height of the mezzanine guardrail conceals the stair separating the bowl from the stockroom.
A translucent fabric tensile structure suspended between walls, masks views into the storage area from the upper level. Below the bowl, linear up-lighting casts shadows at mid-height of a circular dressing room, defined by a curtain of metal reinforced fabric. The store fixtures mounted to the new concrete walls and freestanding were fabricated from solid oak and hot dipped galvanized steel. Low metal benches were custom designed exclusively for the Brooklyn store.
Video display screens in the storefront backed with a large mirror have the simultaneous effects of doubling interior views and offer glimpses of the street.
