A 19th century department store gets an update.
Designed and produced with Celeste Pomputius
The Experience Superstore is a unique cross between a museum for showcasing and an interactive field for testing. By design, the Sustainability Superstore offers a personally transformative experience thematically centered around a sustainable way of living. Although none of the products can themselves be brought home, visitors do walk away with a new way of thinking about daily life and its reverberating effect on the environment. The site of the Sustainability Superstore rethinks the existing, landmarked department storefront at 40 W 23rd Street.
At the center of our project, a performative, double-skinned Solar Court acts as a way-finding point for visitors and offers a sensory cleanse in its reflective, heat-soaked realm. The Solar Court plays a role in collecting solar energy and in optimizing its use by acting as accessory to the project’s systems of environmental control. The Solar Court also optimizes the project’s use of daylighting by bringing sunlight deep into the lower levels.
