The Minneapolis-based furniture company Blu Dot has opened its first flagship retail store in Manhattan, expanding beyond its boutique within ABC Carpet & Home to a proper Soho storefront among design powerhouses DWR, Cappellini, and Ligne Roset. Taking over a 2,500-square-foot space formerly home to Stüssy—designed by New York interiors veteran Nick Dine—Blu Dot founders John Christakos and Maurice Blanks chose to leave the basic structure intact. (Blanks, an architect who maintained his practice after Blu Dot’s startup in 1997, now designs products full-time.) With poured concrete floors and an eye-catching metal staircase that articulates the space, the store expresses the firm’s overall aesthetic of minimalist American furniture, combining originality, practicality, and affordability. As accents within the austere white box, the Blu Dot staff selected vintage products such as a turquoise Remington typewriter and a red RCA television to be dispersed among the furniture and add a touch of humor in line with the company’s quirky attitude. Amid its glossier Soho neighbors, Blu Dot’s unostentatious approach perfectly captures the founders’ belief in “design democratization”—offering high-end furniture that the rest of us can afford.