Since Archinect spoke with All Square founder Emily Hunt Turner in 2017, the nonprofit civil rights social enterprise now has its first brick-and-mortar gourmet grilled cheese restaurant that opened in Minneapolis earlier this month.
Located along Minnehaha Mile, All Square's mission — which aims to prevent recidivism and employ and empower formerly incarcerated individuals — now has a physical presence. The project symbolizes “the importance of a clean slate and community support while sending a message that those who have paid their debts to society are ‘all square’ with society and should be afforded the right to live, unhindered, into their future,” Turner told Archinect in 2016.
Jonathan Louie and Nicole McIntosh of Syracuse-based Architecture Office were in charge of converting a 900 square-foot space into a welcoming, community-oriented casual dining spot. The resulting project features a simple interior of white and gray tones mixed with some of the space's existing materials.
Neon-colored LED lights, mirrors, and metal frames not only serve as playful decorative accents, but they also “partition, frame, and unify the interactions and encounters between people in the restaurant”, Jonathan Louie and Nicole McIntosh describe in a statement.
“We removed the existing interior walls to create an open floor plan with frames that construct many points of focus, many places to sit, many people to watch, and many barriers to cross,” Louie adds.
The frames and inward-facing mirror panels along the perimeter create different perspectives of the space, fusing the spaces of employees with guests, “connecting one with the other in the process.”
Find project drawings in the gallery below.
Project credits
Client: All Square - Emily Turner, CEO
Design Architect: Architecture Office - Nicole McIntosh and Jonathan Louie
Architect of Record: Pedal Design Lab - Ken Koense
Branding and Identity: Whittier Advertising - Montana Scheff
All photos courtesy of Architecture Office.
9 Comments
OK. I’m a little drunk, late Friday night, so this will be a rambling comment. This project is a good design, but it’s frustrating that Ken’s name is not spelled properly. I can’t help but wonder if it’s the designers of the project who misrepresented Ken’s firm and name? (I’m personally dealing, at the moment, with a designer who for some reason *cannot bear* to share credit with the many, many people who are involved in helping his designs come to fruition. So maybe I’m particularly sensitive to this issue right now.)
The most important point is: Ken is using his architectural skills to help serve a community of people who are invisible, for the most part, to society, especially to the upper middle class and striving-for-upper-class community to which most architects like to imagine themselves belonging. I will absolutely plant this flag: we have a duty, as state-registered professionals, to serve not only our clients, but the community in which our clients exist. Ken is doing work that serves his entire community, including, but not only, his clients. This is what all architecture practices should strive for.
*giant face palm emoji*
That's so embarrassing and lame that Ken's name got misspelled here. It's been fixed. I'm so sorry we didn't notice the misspelling of your name in the press release.
how do you misspel ken? smh
I believe the release originally had "Kren" Koense, while Koense may have also been misspelled.
i think it was Ken Kroese Jr.,
that's right...
Someone told me there'd be grilled cheese here...
nah, just love.
Even better.
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