Mikasa...lifestyle : Secaucus, New Jersey : 1992-3

Located in a 26,000 sq.ft. renovated truck repair depot, this prototype store for a leading dinnerware and tabletop gift manufacturer, forms part of the expanding Hackensack/Meadowlands outlet and distribution area.

The design attempts to create a strong interior vocabulary pertinent to the Mikasa product line. The mundane architecture of the existing building and surrounding context of industrial warehousing initiated the concept for the exterior vocabulary as a strong introduction to the interior shopping experience.

The 20-acre site was conceptually turned into "a tabletop", leaving the form of the building as the centerpiece around which over-scaled abstract dinnerware, glassware, and stemware forms could be positioned. Across the interior landscape individual departments are identified with display fixtures positioned as collages of dinnerware, glassware, stemware etc. In heights up to 21 feet. these displays complete the over-scaled feeling of this large volume interior space.

The project was published in the August 1993 issue of Architectural Record Lighting and as a featured cover story in the January 1994 issue of Identity Magazine.