The Shop by Porter
Graham Baba Architects worked to highlight Seattle throughout The Shop by Porter, even maintaining the ethos of the city with the space with carefully thought out details.
A shimmering water-cut mirror over the counter tells guests they are ‘Welcome As You Are.’ A rice paper mural on a concrete column illustrates iconic spots throughout Seattle.
Part café, part boutique, and part showroom, The Shop is a love letter to Seattle and great design that serves as a gathering place for the creative community at a time when culture and connection have never been more important.
While intended to engage and attract Seattle designers and other commercial real estate professionals, the space – especially the café – has become a unique and unexpected oasis for the Downtown Seattle community to connect, imbibe, shop, and refresh during the day.
Offering inspiration to many clients of this commercial interiors showroom as they consider how to layer the element of hospitality into their efforts to recruit and retain employees returning to work, The Shop has served as a functional testing ground for experiencing pandemic and post-pandemic work settings. This “Lab” has provided useful guidance to clients while also breathing life into the stale experience of specifying commercial furniture by wrapping it into a gracious retail/hospitality environment where they can both specify and purchase retail decor from a curated collection by BIPOC makers.
Design: Graham Baba Architects
Contractor: MRJ Constructors
Interior Furnishings: Porter
Photography: Kevin Scott
