Turntable Lab Storefront

Retail spaces should not only represent the brand, but also create community.

When Turntable Lab—a purveyor of music and audio equipment—outgrew its former space, we teamed up to create their retail space. Encompassing 1,200 sq ft in the East Village, the project is designed for flexibility and to unite the various aspects of the business—not only as a place to showcase high-end audio equipment, but also as a neighborhood record store and hub of DJ culture.

Upon entering the store, visitors find an impressive inventory of audio equipment, from a glass-fronted showcase of turntables to a cross-section of headphones and speakers to other high-performance audio accessories. Moving to the back-of-house, record shelves and browsing bins create the comfortable feel of a record shop, with records, bags, t-shirts and hats on display.

We worked closely with Turntable Lab to develop a universal cleat system with a family of interchangeable shelves, hooks and display rails to suit the requirements of existing and future merchandise. This allows the store manager to quickly rearrange displays and feature new items as they come in. Mobile tables and a mobile display wall at the back of the store allow the floor to be opened up for DJ performances and record release parties. Throughout the store, a simple yet refined palette of cool grey, natural wood tones and finely detailed plywood edges allows the merchandise to stand out from the details of the high-tech audio equipment to the colorful covers of the vinyl records.

In the new space, TTL is organizing even more events, broadening its music offerings, and continuing to build a community of listeners, designers, music nerds and performers across the city and around the world. For us, this is another step forward in exploring how this flexible approaches and systems-thinking creatively support projects at different scales and within diverse industries.

Client

Turntable Lab

Location

New York, NY

Scope

1,200 sq ft

Completion

2017

Photography

John Muggenborg