House Design

Open Invite Accessibility and Ease Guide the design of Duralee's Latest fabric showplaces. These are the most recent of five new showrooms designed for the company by New York based architecs Kitchen & stanley. (Two to four more are slated to open within the next year or two). The showroom were designed to function not only as understated display spaces for Duralee's vast collection of woven and printed textiles for the contract and residential markets, but also as working studio environments for designers. "We looked at the showrooms of our competition and realized that in so many of them there is too much going on-with furniture and accessories displayed along with the fabrics," says Drucker. "As a result, the pure art of shopping for fabrics is getting overshadowed." Drucker opted to designate certain parts of the Duralee showrooms as work areas, complete with custom maple work stations at which designers can utilize Duralee's CD-ROOM programs for product inventory and custom coloring.

The architects develop a package of fixtures and furniture as part of a master plan for the Duralee showrooms that is adopted to each new site as the space demands. "We started with the New York showroom," Drucker says, "and have learned as we've gone along." Other customer friendly considerations include well-illuminated, carefully organized fabric display systems that allow the product to play the dominant role against an understated backdrop of neutral materials and furniture.