This downtown Spring Street Arts District project started as a master plan idea and then broke down into several specific interior and exterior design exercises. The central punk theme emerged in a backwards attempt to design objects and then place them into a context versus analyzing the context and fitting into the program elements. The reverse design approach allowed to studio to research and investigate new retail space by retro fitting an old historical bank. The machine parts confounded a new datum for re-purposing the shared classroom, mezzanine guardrail, signage, and café. The owner flexible design focus allowed for many features to emerge in a non-synchronized fashion. Budgets were extremely small and schedules were compressed. The guardrail is split into three different forms and all try to shift a layered massing toward the double height space. The filigree body for making the guardrails were set into the slab edge and braced between the columns. The hybrid offsetting of verticals demanded on site fabrication and installation. There were three activated configurations that all nested from the same family of worms. The metal offsets and variation of small steel members were registered to exhibit a parallax of contorted symmetries. This complex of salient forms brings a new saddle of original thinking to the mezzanine apertures.

The ground floor bookstore café is set to conform into three intensive constellation elements that engage the body. The café is determined to be a novel like form that is narrative in intent but becomes arbitrary. The forms mingle and meander with the speed or slowness of activated zoning. The existing window was a feed parameter into organising the small space. The two tables were custom fabricated onsite to support large human live loads. The tables could be used as conference layout spaces and stand-up group gatherings.