

Location: New York
Firm: SHoP Architects, New York
Team: Kimberly J. Holden, Gregg A. Pasquarelli, Christopher R. Sharples, Coren D. Sharples and William W. Sharples
For the headquarters of online boutique retailer Shopbop, New York firm SHoP sought to conjure a trendy loft with decidedly feminine accents. Starting with a two-storey space, the designers stripped the interior down to its original raw concrete flooring and exposed vents, then assembled a refined palette of colours, materials and details that mixes rustic elements with urban sophistication. Throughout, they interspersed a punchy tangerine hue (the brand’s signature colour), on shelves, choice pieces of furniture, and as a highlight on the reclaimed wood panelling in the reception area. Private offices are screened off with translucent white walls framed, shoji-like, in a black grid; and in one meeting room, ladders along the shelves proffer their rungs to display Shopbop’s designer duds.


Location: Toronto
Firm: The Design Agency, Toronto
Team: Allen Chan and Anwar Mekhayech, with Matt Davis, Lorelei Lucas and Shady Wanis
Momofuku is a new outpost for the ever-expanding empire of celebrity chef David Chang. This partially glazed stack of four separate dining environments, located inside the Shangri La Hotel in downtown Toronto, is cohesively connected by a jigsaw puzzle of horizontal oak slats that covers some of the feature walls, from the main floor’s ramen restaurant to the second level, where a more intimate bar and dining area can be rented out for private events. On the top level, a ribbed oak cube floats dramatically above the spacious third restaurant, where custom seating and chandeliers by Rich Brilliant Willing anchor the dining experience. Just as Chang mixes culinary highs with such workaday street food as ramen, the Design Agency has orchestrated sophisticated comfort in a series of intimate, inviting interiors.