Working as an intern architect for Goodwyn, Mills, and Cawood, I had the opportunity to design a project from scratch. The project is for the owner of DUH! Furniture Store, a popular store for contemporary furniture in Pensacola, FL. The building expands the client’s current showroom, called the barn, on a narrow adjacent lot just outside of the Pensacola Central Business District. The client wanted to build on the bucolic nature of the existing showroom in the new building. Designing the exterior with similar materials—board and batten and siding, and a corrugated metal roof—the design looks to play with the concept of a country porch as an opportunity to showcase outdoor furniture from the street.

Functionally, the building still needed to connect to the existing building, which is reinforced in the building’s two gables roofline, designed to match the exaggerated gable roof of the existing building. The extension on the porch typography occurs through the continuation roof over the porch, supported by angled columns and a formal stair. Through this, we set apart the new building from the existing structure while playfully calling patrons, passersby, and collectors to embrace the slow, easygoing nature of the rural lifestyle