In New York’s Lower East Side, a green-tinged glow off of Grand Street beckons passersby. Follow the light into a room of contradictions: traditional, custom wallpaper meets striking aluminum sconces with jagged edges, designed by Berlin-based Shino Nam. balcony, an architecture and interiors studio based in Los Angeles and Athens, designed the store for eyewear company BONNIE CLYDE. The store’s intriguing contradictions are the perfect fit for the brand, which designs for a generation that runs on both irony and elegance.
The layout is itself another contradiction. While a retail space, the store borrows from the plan of a New York railroad apartment, where progression flows through three rooms in linear fashion. Each is visually distinct.
In the first room, wallpaper dominates, reflected by a wall of mirrors. In the middle of the space, a custom table combines the base of an antique table with stacked layers of pale green acrylic like an oversized cake holding glasses along its layers.
Where the first room is playful and flirtatious, the next acts as a dark transition. More compressed, the space is fully clad in dark-stained plywood. A built-in cut-out within the plywood acts as a concealed mirror that only reveals itself upon passing by. Victorian cabinets, retrofitted with built-in lights, metallic backsplashes, and pale green inserts, riff on the domestic layout. The out-of-place furniture furthers the store’s surreal and surprising tinge.
The dark room opens up into the third, conceived like a bedroom. Here, floor-to-ceiling drapery adds a soft touch, contrasting against sharp mirrors, scuffed floors, and aluminum panels. The panels are floor-to-ceiling with built-in shelving for the glasses. Another custom display sits at the center of the floor. This longer display continues the antique-meets-green-acrylic motif.
The vision gets away from traditional retail where objects (and thus consumerism) are the focal point. Instead, the design’s residential layers and contradictions highlight the atmosphere and intimacy of the space.
