Green Depot
222 Bowery
Tel: 212-226-0444
Designer: Mapos

The Brooklyn-based, eco-friendly building products supplier Green Depot recently opened its first flagship retail store in a landmarked Bowery building. New York–based firm Mapos collaborated with Green Depot on the 3,500-square-foot space, which is a hybrid retail outpost and interactive educational center geared toward informing customers about sustainable building products. According to principal Colin Brice, the design process was driven by the question of what it means to be green. The designers also drew inspiration from the work of artist Gordon Matta-Clark, whose cut-and-sliced building fragments showed the constructed layers around us. “The building slices, or sections [on display in the front of the store], reveal the inner workings of sustainable architecture,” Brice said, “and expose the green materials used, as well as demonstrating the variety of products available here.” Using this concept of legibility, the architects also uncovered remnants of the store’s original YMCA building by exposing ceiling beams, a maple gymnasium floor, and tiles from the old natatorium. In addition to recycling materials, they used nearly 90 percent of Green Depot’s in-house products. On track to win LEED Platinum certification, the store is proof that reusing old buildings can be the greenest choice of all.