Grown Alchemist’s flagship retail store offsets new and old, to the benefit of both. A dilapidated nineteenth-century terrace house in Carlton has been restored at the front and preserved in its decayed state at the rear, where a new “clean room” has been inserted. The climate-controlled, glass-and-stainless-steel “laboratory” looks all the more pristine against its raw, industrial background. Its clinical minimalism also enhances the richness and patina of its outer shell – together, the old and new are more than the sum of their parts.
The genesis of the design took place several years earlier, within the competitive, visual cacophony of the department
