Droog New York
The Amsterdam-based design firm Droog has opened its first American retail space in a 5,000-square-foot, two-story Soho loft. Created in partnership with fellow Dutch designers Studio Makkink & Bey, the store makes a sophisticated blend of architecture, product design, and merchandizing. Droog asked its designers for an interior composed of elements that could be purchased, and the studio responded with an installation that acts variously as utilitarian product display, demonstration, and architectural folly. The main level is dominated by the House of Blue, a structure made of polyurethane foam with niches that display the store’s witty collection of furnishings, kitchenware, and high-style bric-a-brac. But the foam also serves as a “blueprint” from which customers can order different parts of the house to be custom-fabricated in wood, porcelain, or other materials and produced in limited editions. The baroquely decorated main level contrasts with the more austere lower level, where a wall consists of flat-packed, CNC-milled pieces of furniture that can be assembled into benches, tables, and stools. Throughout, the space echoes the verve of Droog’s products—wallpaper with circular cut-outs that reveal the surface underneath; a bathroom mat that doubles as slippers—and extends the firm’s ethos of informality and reuse.
