Contract - November 2012 - (Page 41)

By Jean Nayar Photography by Paul Warchol With a longstanding history as favored restaurateur in New York’s Financial District, the Poulakakos family was at the top of the list of potential storefront tenants within the new Goldman Sachs headquarters building in lower Manhattan’s Battery Park City. The family welcomed the opportunity to parlay their expertise in food and wine into a new retail venue called Vintry Fine Wines, which is distinctive in its approach to the display and sale of bottles of wine. “We really wanted each bottle to have its own identity on the shelves,” says Peter Poulakakos. “And we wanted a refined, clean, bright environment that would be an expressive backdrop for our wine bottles.” To craft a space that would reflect their core idea and well-edited offerings, the Poulakakoses enlisted New York–based Rogers Marvel Architects, who designed a crisp, jewel box of a store that departs dramatically from the musty, woodsy, jumbled qualities typically found in a wine shop. Crafting a new typology Peter Poulakakos wields the reins of the legacy begun by his father, Harry Poulakakos, founder and impresario of Harry’s restaurant in lower Manhattan, and has built his own emerging food empire, including Bayard’s, Adrienne’s Pizza Bar, Financier Patisserie, and Ulysses. The Poulakakos’s history in the food business enabled Rogers Marvel to design a clean, clutter-free space within a 2,100-square-foot footprint. “Most wine stores generally require a ratio of 80 percent storage space to 20 percent display space,” says Tim Fryatt, the Rogers Marvel architect in charge of the project. “For every bottle on display, there are typically 11 in storage and the excess inventory results in dirty, cluttered environments filled with boxes.” The Poulakakoses, though, developed a business model that allows for much of the storage to be in remote locations. This enables “a new typology,” says Fryatt, “that allowed us to appropriate 30 percent of what would have been storage space for display, giving us 65 percent of the space for display.” To accommodate the family’s distinct approach to marketing the wines, the architects also opted to depart from linear aisles and flat shelves characteristic of a typical wine shop. Instead, the space is designed as a series of undulating continuous shelves that wrap around a central display table and curve into a hidden niche at the back of the store. “The sinuous wall system allows the number of bottles in any given region to expand and contract as the inventory evolves, giving the store owners flexibility to adapt to variables in inventory as needed,” says Fryatt. With undulating display walls and clean, white surfaces, Vintry dramatically departs from a typical wine shop. contract

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Contract - November 2012

Contract - November 2012
Contents
Editorial
Industry News
Product Focus: Getting Crafty
Product Briefs: Seating and Carpet
HyundaiCard Air Lounge
Orla Kiely
Vintry Fine Wines
Louis Vuitton Selfridges
Diptych Leadenhall Market and Bleecker Street
Camper Granada
Practice: The Future in Technology and Experiential Interiors
Designers Select: Tables and Casegoods
Sources
Ad Index
Small Project: A Lighting Installation Emphasizes Decadence in a Brussels

Contract - November 2012