Out & About

STA Office Architecture - Out & About - Vancouver - Gastown

STA Office is an architectural practice based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, established in 2016. The Office applies its knowledge, work, and sensibilities to design projects across a range of scales and building typologies, seeking clear and transformative outcomes. The practice was founded by Architect, Seng Tsoi.

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Private commission; completed 2018

Interior design, retail space

Vancouver, BC

1,500 SF [139 SM]

Publication: Wallpaper* City Guide Vancouver, Phaidon Press, 2019

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Out & About is a boutique retail store in Vancouver’s historic Gastown neighborhood. The store’s co-founders, friends: Cecilia, Sheila, and Angela, all share a love for Japanese culture. They exhibit and offer the fruits of their extensive travels throughout Japan, carefully curated with locally sourced products: a plethora of uniquely beautiful objects and wares for everyday life.

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Our approach to the store’s design was to provide a simple backdrop for these objects and future pieces. The space is rendered with a reduced palette of white walls, wood floors, and wood-finished millwork. The millwork, composed of mobile displays, shelves, and a front counter, is finished in Douglas fir. Moreover, the new solid wood floors, also made of Douglas fir, were a feature of the original historic building.

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The existing stair, which connects to the lower level, was transformed by curving its guard; its bright red colour unites and celebrates the color of the store’s historic front door. As one descends the steps to the lower level, a perfect circle is inscribed into the stair’s sidewall to reveal the building’s masonry foundation from circa 1889; a gesture to the past from the present.