R.sole
St. Louis
Tobin + Parnes Design Enterprises
Dark walls and colored lights create a nightclub-like atmosphere
R.sole specializes in selling sneakers that are guaranteed to turn heads: custom-designed and special limited edition shoes popular with a hip crowd of collectors. For its second store, in St. Louis’s university district, the Memphis-based retailer hired Tobin+Parnes to design an environment in which its customers would feel at home—the architect, accordingly, designed a 1,972-square-foot space—that blends elements of a dance club with a black box gallery.
The designers created a space in which R.sole can display unique shoes like works of art. In the perimeter walls, which are painted dark grey, they carved out a series of niches: some small enough for only one pair of sneakers, others spanning up to one-third of the entire wall. In the center of the floor, Tobin+Parnes suspended a series of thin, white panels from the ceiling: each one containing ledges for displaying more shoes.
Color-changing LED displays provide backlighting for the wall niches, while fixtures mounted in the floor suffuse the main sales floor with colored light. The architect designed the sales desk so that it can be converted into a DJ booth for parties and community events. The store’s front windows feature translucent vinyl cutouts, allowing passersby only glimpses of the interior—reinforcing the sense of an exclusive nightclub.
Formal name of project:
R.sole
Location:
St. Louis
Gross square footage:
1,972 sq. ft.
Owner:
R.sole
Architect:
Tobin + Parnes Design Enterprises
304 Hudson St., Suite 500
New York, NY 10013
212-462-4200 tel.
www.tobinparnes.com
Team photo
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