Commercial and restaurants

 

Selected projects

As with most smaller architecture firms, commercial design - especially restaurants and retail stores - is a major part of the business.  As with residential design, it is the type of design that is most rewarding and the most fun.  The scale is small enough that one can anticipate the users - the future occupants - of the design.  Plus the turn-around time from first meeting to project construction is relatively quick.

Commercial design is usually for one person who is the client. By contrast, residential design usually involves two individuals - a couple - who are “the client” and a major part of the architect’s role is to negotiate between two disparate and un-rehearsed sets of values, desires and programmatic needs.

There is no attempt to create broad generalizations of these projects.  They are simply diverse: large-scale retail renovation, restaurants and food businesses and specialty shops.  The North Market Building at the Faneuil Hall Marketplace was designed and constructed while I was with Benjamin Thompson and Associates and represents the most complex architectural project I was to manage and construct up to that time.  All remaining projects were the work of Richard Bosch Architect. 

When designing the Children’s Museum Store, in Boston, I had been using the Italian grocery store as a metaphor for its design, based on my wanderings through Boston’s North End and recent travels to Italy.  Upon completion of the project - and sparked by my own abilities as an Italian food expert and cook - I decided to follow my own best advice and opened an Italian prepared-food store and fresh-pasta shop: Pasta Pronto.  That decision opened a decade of restaurant design, with the most complex project being the Water’s Edge.

The Exploratory restaurant 2013 provides a brief description of how, in about 2 hours time, we can help a potential restaurant owner determine the viability of a potential site.

Additional descriptions follow on each project page.

Projects are arranged approximately in chronological order.