Yellowtrees | xoco325

Branding

xoco325 is a former chocolate factory in Soho whose conversion by DDG to a new cast-aluminum-faced residential building soulfully reinterprets the historic neighborhood. For the project’s marketing campaign, we commissioned award-winning DC Comics and Marvel artist-illustrator Shawn Martinbrough to imagine the old and new architecture as populated by superheroes.

This approach allowed us to avoid the traditional renderings that can fall flat artistically and fail to create an animated feeling for the life of a building.

In addition, we collaborated with Jacques Torres Chocolates to make custom chocolate bars, using our designs to represent the building. Billboards also carried the message to the street and we even created an animated short for the web experience, dynamically bringing the superhero theme alive.

Architecture

325 West Broadway	Residential & Commercial
New York	Soho
16 Residences	10 Stories Ground-up / Gut Reno
Designer, Developer, Builder	DDG
Branding	Jakob Jakob

Since the building sits in the middle of Soho's historic cast iron district and on the site of a former chocolate factory that once made chocolate covered cherries and Tootsie Rolls, we decided to use molten metal for our facade material. Working with the Walla Walla Foundry, custom molds were created for the cast aluminum facade parts inspired by knuckles, armor, and Bogardus' kits of parts, used for the historic cast iron buildings in the 1800s.

Guthrie takes his team to the Walla Walla Foundry to work out the details of the facade of molten aluminum

the influence of the branding collaboration with Shawn shows up in this detail "drawing" the outline of the metal in the concrete board

The beauty of craft and technology working in harmony

Utilizing our on-site shop, we made custom formwork from our 3D modeling software carrying the organic language of the facade to every aspect of the project - from poured concrete to plaster details.

Interiors

Plaster details and a custom poured concrete kitchen island carry the exterior design motifs to the interior

Ux-design

Experience

Collaborating with the likes of Neil Becksted Studio, Colony, BDDW, HEM, Ladies and Gentleman and others we created environments from model apartments to pop-up retail experiences to bring the project to life.