New at Pentagram
New Work: M&T Bank
Lorenzo Apicella was asked to design a new flagship branch building for M&T Bank that would capture the essence of M&T’s core values with a design that would endure well into the future, differentiating M&T from its competitors with a distinct and compelling image.
It was agreed that this flagship branch, located in West Seneca, New York, would be the model for all future branch construction and renovation. As an architectural prototype the branch design needed to be adaptable to variable future site conditions and business needs. It also had to meet M&T’s environmental goal of having a low carbon footprint, consuming as little energy as possible and producing minimal amounts of waste. The completed building is anticipated to achieve an LEED Gold rating.
New Work: Robert Welch
To mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of Robert Welch’s Chipping Campden Studio Shop, Lorenzo Apicella was asked to undertake a major redesign of the space.
Pentagram has a long history of involvement with Robert Welch Designs having developed the graphic identity in the early 1970’s and designing the first mail-order catalogues as well as the book Hand and Machine.
Preview: Israel Museum
The renewed Bronfman Archaeological Wing of the Israel Museum designed by Daniel Weil and John Rushworth opens on 25 July following over five years of work. The Archaeological Wing originally opened in 1965 and has been redesigned and restored by Pentagram as part of the whole scale renewal of the entire museum campus.
New Work: 20 Launceston Place
William Russell has undertaken a sensitive and careful remodelling of a Grade 2 listed building in Kensington London.
The building had been extended organically over the last hundred years to the point where little of the original remained barring the staircase. The project involved stripping away and cleaning up the space in order to create a four-bedroom home with large entertaining spaces.
More pictures of the house after the jump.
New Work: MHL by Margaret Howell Tokyo Store
Last month saw the opening of a new Margaret Howell concept store in Tokyo, designed by William Russell and his team at Pentagram Architects. The latest product of Russell’s longstanding collaboration with Howell, this is the first stand-alone space for her diffusion brand MHL. The small (43m²) ground floor retail space is in the Daikanyama district and is clad externally with black steel grill panels. The interior features new display units, cash desk and furniture with a warehouse style storage wall behind the counter.
William Russell’s previous interior work with Margaret Howell includes the Place de la Madeleine store in Paris and award-winning Fulham Road store in London.
A look inside the new MHL store after the jump.
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Weeds Dining Room in The New York Times
Quick Link: Weeds Dining Room in The New York Times
New Work: ‘Weeds’ Dining Room
“Weeds” is all about the sacred and the profane. Or maybe the sacred and the mundane.
In the Showtime series a California housewife played by Mary-Louise Parker turns to selling marijuana after the death of her husband. The darkly comic mix of suburbia, naïveté and family dynamics is portrayed against a background of drugs, death, deceit and personal demons. The amount of killing, death, pain and humiliation surpasses even recent mob-themed shows; and this is a comedy!
This year’s Metropolitan Home Showtime House consists of twin penthouses at the luxury Tribeca Summit loft condominiums. James Biber and his team at Pentagram Architects were one of 14 designer teams invited to create rooms inspired by the network’s original programming.
Biber and his team, working on their first showhouse design, referenced a comic climax from “Weeds” for their design of the dining room. For those not up on the show’s past seasons, the scene was an eye-rolling reveal of a stolen rooftop lighted cross lifted from a new local religion-based community’s church. The enormous crucifix finally appears, lashed to the ceiling of a hastily assembled “grow house.” The stolen cross has become a lighting fixture over a bed of marijuana plants!
New Work: Margaret Howell
Tonight, a special launch event will mark the opening of Margaret Howell’s first store in mainland Europe, in Paris’ Place de la Madeleine. Margaret Howell Paris and the recent refurbishment of an existing store in the Jinnan-Shibuya district of Tokyo are the latest product of a ten-year creative relationship between Pentagram Architect William Russell and Margaret Howell, during which the pair have defined an award-winning interior style that is soon to be introduced throughout the clothing designer’s 66 stores in Japan.
“For the past ten years I have worked with Will Russell on the design of our shop interiors,” says Howell. “Whilst incorporating my ideas, Will always adds something that just wouldn’t occur to me—a special spatial vision—resulting in a rewarding and successful working relationship.”
New Work: Intimacy
During the financially dismal 2008 holiday shopping season, one product held up nicely: bras. Intimacy, a growing chain of high-end intimate apparel stores, saw its sales increase 4.4 percent over the past year, a period during which it launched a new identity by Pentagram and a new store design by Pentagram Architects.
Located in upscale shopping malls across the country, Intimacy as a brand differentiates itself from its competitors by offering personalized bra fitting services, elegant environments and European designer brands such as La Perla. The first store built with the new design is in Boston’s Copley Place, the city’s most distinctive shopping destination, and will serve as the prototype for future stores, as it has for Intimacy’s most recent outlet in Miami.
Developed by James Biber and Associate Michael Zweck-Bronner, the Intimacy environments feature spacious, well-appointed fitting rooms, high-end furnishings and fittings, and a refined color palette of gray and gold. Intimacy’s logo, designed by Paula Scher, is evoked in the details of the store’s design. Custom-designed hangers and gold environmental graphics play off the mark’s ornamental brackets that snugly embrace the company’s name.
A look inside Intimacy after the jump.
New Work: Matter
A multidisciplinary team led by William Russell and Angus Hyland has created the name, identity and interior architecture for Matter, a live music venue that sits under the iconic domed roof of London’s O2 Centre.
Arranged over three floors, with a capacity of 2,600 and equipped with state-of-the-art sound and lighting equipment, Matter is set to become a major landmark in London’s contemporary music scene.
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