Green

Designers insist that green evokes serenity and is considered one of the most adaptable colors for home decorating. Reasons enough, it seems, for veteran retail designer/merchandiser Michael Donohue to launch his new retail concept named (what else?) Green.

The 3600-square-foot store, located in (where else?) Greenwich, Conn., offers a range of home accessories, giftware, occasional furniture and art, mostly in shades of, well, you know. And the environment is an oasis of calming greens, from the pale stucco of its facade and interior walls to cast concrete tiles that begin on the sidewalk and continue inside.

Franke, Gottsegen, Cox Architects (New York) transformed a long, narrow box into a flowing, light-infused space. Natural bamboo-plank flooring visually lengthens the floorplan, and light-filled cutouts in the interior walls provide special product niches. Midway into the store, wide concrete stairs, flanked by merchandised platforms, draw shoppers to an open, skylit second level.

Donohue explains that because the merchandise falls into one color family, Green had more flexibility with the fixturing. Merchandise is displayed on distressed wooden benches, matte-finished, blackened-steel tables and in polished-glass vitrines and boxes. Warm wood veneer clads wall-mounted perimeter shelving — as well as a monolithic cashwrap — with a rectangular backlit slot that makes it appear to glow from within.

Client Team: Green, Bedford Hills, N.Y. — Michael Freeman Donohue, owner

Design Team: Franke, Gottsegen, Cox Architects, New York — Norman Cox and Suzana Bellettiere, design team

Outside Consultants: Barrie West, Hereford, England (graphic/logo design); Duo Design, New York (visual merchandising)

Suppliers/Fabricators: RSS Construction Management, Darien, Conn. (construction); Essential Communications, New York (audio); Fleetwood Industries, Reading, Pa. (fixtures)

Photography: Simon Cherry, New York