Bureau St. James

Work

More than 200 store environments, no two alike.

Selected work from James’s career at URBN. The cost, the lease, the landlord and the old building shaped each store.

Anthropologie on Regent Street, London: the shopfront and the lit windows above it, in the old building
Plate 01Anthropologie, Regent Street, London

01 · URBN

URBN’s in‑house design studio

Anthropologie, Regent Street, London: the skylit hall inside the old building, a living wall of plants beside the stair down to the lower floor
Plate 02Anthropologie, Regent Street, London: the hall. Photo: James Smith
Anthropologie, King’s Road, London: the old billiard hall under its glazed roof, merchandised for opening
Plate 03King’s Road, the hall. Photo: James Smith
Anthropologie, King’s Road, London: the green-tiled front with stained glass above the windows
Plate 04King’s Road, the front. Photo: James Smith
Challenge
Keep every store one of a kind across URBN’s brands, while Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters grew from 140 stores to more than 400.
James’s role
Tasked with building and leading the award‑winning internal design studio, and hired and developed its team. Led the store design team for Anthropologie’s launch in Europe, and facilitated Free People’s move into Japan through a partnership. The studio only designed. Each store then had its own design and build team: an outside architect of record with the structural and MEP engineers and permit expediting under them, then the fixture makers, sign fabricators and custom vendors the design called for. James coordinated them. A store took 8 to 16 weeks to design.
Result
More than 200 individual store environments, no two alike. VMSD’s Peter Glen Retailer of the Year, 2009, accepted for Urban Outfitters Inc. The studio continues today.

Source: URBN, Form 10‑K, fiscal 2005 and 2015

02 · Dos Lagos

Anthropologie, Dos Lagos, Corona

Anthropologie Dos Lagos: a glass room of yucca and grass open to the sky, behind a timber plinth, with the clothes around it
Plate 05Anthropologie, Dos Lagos, Corona. Photo: Bruce Damonte
Anthropologie Dos Lagos: a stepped green hill for display under round skylights
Plate 06The hill of green. Photo: Bruce Damonte
The store
An Anthropologie prototype in Corona, California, with a real garden in the middle of the store.
What it took
The team cut a hole in the roof and drained the ground below it, so living plants could grow inside the store. Beside them, a hill of green you could shop from.
James’s role
Store design and planning for Anthropologie, with creative director Kristin Norris. Design architect: WORKac. Architect of record: Ignarri Lummis. Landscape: D.I.R.T. studio.
Result
AIA New York Design Award, Merit, Interiors, 2008.

Source: WORKac, Anthropologie Dos Lagos

03 · Anthropologie & Co.

Anthropologie & Co.: the store of the future, prototyped in four weeks

Bedford Square, Westport: the old YMCA’s brick arch, home of Anthropologie & Co., which began as a four-week prototype in a URBN warehouse
Plate 07Anthropologie & Co., Westport
Challenge
Explore the store of the future for Anthropologie.
James’s role
Part of the URBN team that commissioned an outside team and put everyone at one table: designers, an architect of record, a structural engineer for a very big space, a visual merchandiser and the general merchandise manager.
Result
A four‑week engagement produced a full prototype in a URBN warehouse. It led to Anthropologie & Co.; the Westport store opened in the town’s old YMCA in 2017.

04 · Herald Square

Urban Outfitters, Herald Square

Urban Outfitters, Herald Square, New York: the lettered sign above Broadway
Plate 08Urban Outfitters, Herald Square, New York
The store
The Urban Outfitters flagship on Herald Square, New York: 56,000 square feet over three floors.
What it took
Coordination at scale: the structure across three floors, a coffee partnership that gave way to an in‑house concept, and a salon sublease inside the store.
James’s role
Part of the store planning and design team.

05 · Devon Yard

Devon Yard

The glasshouse at Devon Yard: tables under a glass roof and hanging plants
Plate 09Devon Yard: the glasshouse
The site model for Devon Yard, seen from above
Plate 10Devon Yard: the site model
The development
A ground‑up, mixed‑use development on Philadelphia’s Main Line.
What it took
A zoning overlay, community meetings, approvals and subleases. Then the civil work: traffic studies and earthworks, coordinated with the foundations and footings before any architecture. The building, usually the star, was the icing.
James’s role
Part of the URBN team that carried the zoning and civil work through approvals into construction, with land-use counsel and the engineers.
Result
Built, and open.

In collaboration

The studio designed.
James coordinated everything else, more than 200 times.

Every store had an outside architect of record, with the structural and MEP engineers and the permit expediter working under them. Then came the fixture makers, sign fabricators and custom vendors each design called for. James brought them together for every store, a design and build studio assembled around each one, and it is the same work a rollout needs now. For some stores the team also worked with an outside design architect, and several of those won awards.

With WORKac
Anthropologie, Dos Lagos, Corona, 2007. A real garden inside the store. AIA New York Design Award, Merit, Interiors, 2008.
With EOA, Robin Osler
Anthropologie, Oklahoma City, 2011: reclaimed cedar columns and a garden under a skylight. Interior Design Best of Year honoree, 2012, and a SARA New York Design Award, 2013. Albuquerque: an entry of sloped reclaimed wood. Interior Design Best of Year, Merit, 2008. Huntsville: a living wall of about 2,000 square feet. SARA New York Award of Excellence, 2011. Burlingame: an ipe front behind a screen of wood and copper rods. AIA New York State Award of Excellence, 2009. Little Rock: steel screens cut with apple blossom.
Anthropologie Oklahoma City: reclaimed cedar columns around a skylit garden, a round table in front
Oklahoma City. Photo: Robert Reck
Anthropologie Albuquerque: the entry, a tunnel of sloped reclaimed wood under the name
Albuquerque. Courtesy EOA
Anthropologie Burlingame: perforated metal under a canopy of wood and copper rods
Burlingame. Photo: Elizabeth Felicella
Anthropologie Little Rock: a steel ceiling cut with apple blossom over the glass entry
Little Rock. Courtesy EOA
With Pompei A.D.
Anthropologie, Rockefeller Center, New York.
Architects of record
Every store had one. NewStudio and David A. Levy and Associates were architects of record for many of the in‑house studio’s stores, among them Urban Outfitters Tallahassee, 2013, and Space Ninety 8, Brooklyn, 2014, a converted warehouse with a restaurant and a rooftop.

Also

Career work also includes BHLDN, UO’s Space Ninety 8 and Space 24 Twenty, and the Vetri Family of Restaurants.

Urban Outfitters Space Ninety 8, Brooklyn: a skylit dining room in a converted warehouse
Plate 11Urban Outfitters Space Ninety 8, Brooklyn
Urban Outfitters Space 24 Twenty, Austin: an open courtyard at dusk
Plate 12Urban Outfitters Space 24 Twenty, Austin

The URBN years

More of the stores.

Roll 02 · Black and white · Stores by URBN’s in‑house teamFrames 1 to 6

  1. A staircase, Chicago
  2. Terrain
  3. A table, Chicago
  4. Terrain, the garden
  5. A corridor, Chicago
  6. BHLDN, Houston

Case files

Since URBN: the work we can’t show.

James’s work since leaving URBN. Client names withheld.

  1. File 01

    Drawing for File 01: one district plan, drawn once and ringed in red, lands in two places, on the deck of a ship at sea and in a square ashore.
    Drawing · One district, two hosts
    Client
    A travel and leisure brand
    Engagement
    Retail strategy
    The question
    What should shopping be when the shop goes wherever the customer goes?
    The shape of the answer
    A district plan, two scenarios and a phased roadmap.

  2. File 02

    Drawing for File 02: four nights of floor plans stacked under the morning’s store; one table, ringed in red, has walked to the door as it sold.
    Drawing · Redrawn every night
    Client
    A retail technology company
    Engagement
    Concept
    The question
    What if a store’s plan redrew itself every night?
    The shape of the answer
    A plan that reads live stock and sales and redraws the floor for the morning.

  3. File 03

    Drawing for File 03: one bedroom, ringed in red, made once and lent to four houses: a department store floor, a hotel, a furniture gallery and a designer’s townhouse.
    Drawing · One room, many houses
    Client
    A European heritage bedmaker
    Engagement
    North American expansion
    The question
    How does a heritage brand open North America without building it all alone?
    The shape of the answer
    A partner-led expansion strategy.

  4. File 04

    Drawing for File 04: a city house cut down its middle, from the bright avenue through the shaded entrance passage to the patio open to the sky, ringed in red, where the store opens first.
    Drawing · Enter the way the houses do
    Client
    A US lifestyle retail group
    Engagement
    New-market study
    The question
    Should the group open in Mexico City, and how?
    The shape of the answer
    A market-entry study.

  5. File 05

    Drawing for File 05: one bare grid of frames drawn twice. In the morning every bay is a stall hung with cloth, pattern on pattern; by evening the stalls close up at the edges and the middle, ringed in red, is given to people under lanterns.
    Drawing · Left unbuilt
    Client
    A pan-African makers’ brand
    Engagement
    Retail concept
    The question
    What if a store worked like a medina, with no fixed fixtures and no set path?
    The shape of the answer
    A bare grid of frames the makers fill pattern on pattern, turning from morning market to evening gathering, with no cash desk.

  6. File 06

    Drawing for File 06: an old coastal inn on a slope to the water; the house at the top has its upper floors lifted off, and its ground floor, ringed in red, is opened as a bar and a living room, with the porch looking down the lawn to the launch.
    Drawing · The town’s living room
    Client
    A historic coastal inn
    Engagement
    Repositioning concept (unbuilt)
    The question
    How does a historic inn become a place the town comes to, not just where visitors sleep?
    The shape of the answer
    Keep the bones, move check-in into the old house and open its ground floor as a bar and living room for guests and the town alike.

Client confidential. Ask us in the room.

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