LATENT DESIGN

Eat Your Veggies

Forty Acres Fresh Market is more than a grocery store, it delivers on a promise of restoring produce access in the Austin neighborhood and shows the potential of building reuse. Two vacant buildings were reconfigured to accomodate the needs of a 12,000sf grocery store and a bank, unified behind an angled box metal skin in bright brand colors. The interior of the store hints at the 100 year old history of the bow truss building as customers wrap around the space in a sequence of produce, meat, dairy, and dry goods. Store and site operations were complimented with a new streetscape design that constructed wider sidewalks, bike lanes, new landscaping, and lighting to frame the block. The attention to design detail is mirrored in the attention to customer service from the owner Liz Abunaw and the team behind Forty Acres. “Good grocery stores are not just transactional, you're creating an environment that makes people feel supported...”

Client:
Latent Team: + Tyler
Consultants: Rockey Structures, Engage Civil, CCJM, Retail Planit, Storemasters
Contractor: .inc
Photography: .wazny

Rowhouse Reuse
Lathrop Homes is a 34 acre historic affordable housing site bordered by the Chicago River, Diversey, Clybourn, and Damen streets. To honor the legacy of the original homes, many of Lathrop's existing structures will be historically preserved and restored. It was a joy working with to carve away a small community space from the former rowhouse block C. We wrestled with the existing building constraints to jigsaw an event space, commercial kitchen, business center, two bathrooms, and hid all the mechanical in one well planned soffit in under 1,300sf.

Client: led by
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Featuring: wallcoverings
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