“This project deploys several strategies … inviting a sense of discovery and light through color, through scale, through experiential moments, and it’s a wonderful way of integrating brand and customer experience.”
— Roberto de Leon, FAIA
“They have really understood and captured the essence of this product and have been able to broadcast that through the architecture.”
— Gordon Gill, FAIA
Location Fort Worth
Client Matthew Barber
Architect Ibañez Shaw Architecture
Design Team Bart Shaw, FAIA, Katy Dunaway, Assoc. AIA
Contractor Steele & Freeman
Structural Engineer HnH Engineering
MEP and Civil Engineer Baird, Hampton & Brown
Landscape Architect Kinler Landscape Architecture
Photographer Dror Baldinger, FAIA
Chroma, a provider of modern eyewear and eye care, takes advantage of a prominent location in the city to engage the urban fabric and provide a singular retail experience. The entry is marked by a progression of steel angle frames placed along an elevated walk, with the geometry continuing in the glass curtainwall and revealing itself on the interior as the structure for the display shafts. Free-flowing display fixtures allow exploration of the eyeglass collection among views of the adjacent cultural district and downtown. The building was constructed using a tilt-wall concrete system, and simple steel fabrications and solid surfaces were used for counters and desks. Window openings were kept to a minimum on the building’s west and south sides, which house optometry testing and exam rooms, spaces requiring restricted daylight.