Malin+Goetz DTLA
Los Angeles, California
Completed 2016
Design Team
Brian Messana, Toby O’Rorke, Viktor Nassli, Margot Robier
Collaborators
Executive Architect: VMC
Lighting Designer: Zerolux
In one sweeping gesture, a single architectural form, clearly articulated and executed, resolves the challenges of the awkward, wedge-shaped site of the M+G boutique in L.A.’s Arts District. Two sides of the triangular space border pedestrian pathways within a sprawling mixed-used development, while the wide end of the wedge fronts busy Santa Fe Avenue. This being Los Angeles, where cars always seem to outnumber pedestrians, we treated the street-facing façade as one large window display, essentially a billboard to attract the attention of passing motorists. The entrance to the boutique faces an internal courtyard within the development, beckoning shoppers as they circulate.
The solution for the store interior was a single, continuous, ribbon-like display fixture of white-enameled metal that traces the perimeter of the space in a combination of straight runs and thirty-degree angles. Independent of the white plaster walls and windows, the freestanding structure is comprised of multiple bays held in place by floor-anchored columns. The company’s signature color-coded packaging adds rhythm to the movement of the serpentine fixture. As a chromatic and textural foil to the exposed concrete floor and ceiling, a floating sales counter wrapped in reclaimed oak is the only other object to occupy this assiduously distilled composition. This is a space activated by transparency and precision, two forces working in tandem to clarify the shopping experience and buttress the M+G brand identity.
Photographs by Eric Laignel