"I love fresh ideas about everything". Adriana Siso founded her contemporary industrial design store in 2002 in Santa Fe, NM. With a background in Fine Arts, Adriana has been an innovator, bringing to the Santa Fe area, original and unique industrial design products by some of the most creative design firms in the world.
The first design partners Molecule worked with were Vitra Design Museum, Moooi, Cherner Chair, and other well-known national and international brands. Today it partners with other world-class manufacturers like Vondom, Loll Designs and Moroso.
Molecule operated out of a recycled and renovated shipping container building, the first of its kind in Santa Fe. Currently Molecule is available through the online store and by appointment.
Sustainability is an important area of interest and ongoing exploration for Molecule, which offers product lines with a focus on conservation and ecological stewardship. A recent alliance with the Vertical Aeroponic Growing System – Tower Garden, promises to offer a lot of inspiration in the growing field of aeroponics as the future of agriculture, industrial design at its best.
Boxpark is a new shopping mall built from standard-sized recycled shipping containers. Located in London’s ultra-hip east end, the shops are achingly trendy, with the majority selling tee-shirts, shoes and some jeans. All with attitude, of course.
The container village is painted black and white and contains 60 containers which are stacked two stories high and five rows wide. It is all a pop-up, easily plunked down.
Upstairs it is more spread out. There are restaurants with outside benches and tables.
There is a mix of retail stores and some healthy restaurants. The developer says that he wants to give a chance to small up and coming businesses which could not normally afford high rents, so they can get a start. So, in addition to a concept store selling ethically-sourced gifts from Amnesty International, there is also Art Against Knives, which seeks to reduce knife crime through art.
The restaurants are small-ish, with most having only a few other locations in town. As the developer explains: “The reality is, it’s very hard for small brands to be able to afford long leases and it’s difficult sometimes for them to get beyond the financial covenants required for big shopping centres.”
However there are some big ones in there too: Levi’s, Puma, Calvin Klein and Nike all have shops. But no matter how big or little the brand, no one is allowed to have anything on the outside of the store, other than their name. This does democratize the concept in quite a surprising way, visually.
The interiors are all different. Some stores are two and three containers wide; most are only one. Puma (above) has done a particularly sleek and nice looking job in theirs. Others are the standard: railings with tee-shirts and quite a few shoe shops.
I love the efforts you have put in this, thank you for all the great posts.
Thank you Morgan, we love finding inspiring stories. Keep visiting, it makes it all worthwhile.