KEEN Garage Flagship, Portland

Project Brief

• Size: 2715 sf Showroom (252 sq. m)

• Location: Portland OR, USA

• Role: Project owner, layouts, fixtures and built-ins, project execution and budgets.  

Project Highlights

Starting From Scratch

KEEN bought an abandoned 1907 unreinforced masonry (URM) building on the courthouse steps and turned the upper 4 floors into its HQ. The ground floor houses the retail flagship and the employee cafe.

The building was rough when we took possession, but the bones were incredible. The space has massive fir columns supporting huge beams and timber joists all sheathed with 2-3/4” double T&G “car decking” (deckling that is so strong you can drive a car on it). The ceilings are 18ft (5.5 m).  This is what it looked like shortly after we started work: 

Spiral Conveyor

One thing about retail --and footwear retail in particular-- is that you have to plan for a lot of back inventory. For every shoe on the showroom floor, you need to keep a run of sizes (typically 8-10) multiplied by a run of colorways if not genders. It’s a lot of boxes that must be meticulously organized for quick retrieval while a customer is waiting. The showroom is ringed with a library ladder accessible “upstock” rack made from surplus WWWII Marsten mat. This is reserved for the fastest selling product. For oversize boots and more specialty items, you need a room. There was no space on the 1st floor but the rear of the main volume included a very robust partial mezzanine. By expanding this mezzanine and moving a stairway, I was able to utilize this space for inventory. The resulting stockroom is served by a dumbwaiter which is used to replenish the inventory from the receiving area. But for actually retrieving shoes for customers waiting in the showroom, I wanted something more theatrical. I considered many ideas but finally settled on a gravity skate wheel conveyor wrapped around one of the columns like a snake. I sourced much of the equipment used and found a very good local fabricator who was able to take my architectural CAD and generate tight shop drawings, and ultimately, a perfect solution. 

Rotisseries

In order to drive engagement and interactivity many of the shoes are displayed on custom built “rotisseries”. The design saves on wall space at the expense of the floor depth but they are very fun and intuitive to use.  It took many prototypes to arrive at a workable solution. 

Barn Door

This laser etched bypassing door weighs hundreds of pounds but rolls pretty easily on found fire door hardware.  It separates the corporate space of KEEN HQ from the public retail space.