This ‘Big Box’ retail prototype store is designed to showcase furniture for ‘Dania’, a Scandinavian Designs Furniture Store. Initially, the developer requested a windowless building volume amid a sea of parking spaces. We countered that request with carefully proportioned and elongated massing, an exterior aesthetic that references nature by melding organic and manmade elements, and material palette that symbolizes the lost craft of furniture making.

We incorporated a roof form that reads as a floating pane; a design feature that has become iconic to the brand. The exterior elevations utilize a linear showcase window and signage components that have been sized and placed for optimal visibility and a thorough parking analysis proved that we could reduce the parking.

Situated under nine skylights, the furniture display vignettes are scaled to mimic naturally daylit, open floor plan residential configurations. Further reinforcing Scandinavian principles, we employed sustainable practices such as a green roof, daylighting, radiant floor cooling, a thermosyphon ventilation system, and microclimate landscape zones.