All Square
Type
Adaptive re-use, Restaurant
Built
2017
Location
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Size
100 sqm
Client
Emily Turner, All Square
Branding
Whittier Advertising collaboration with Brand Lab
Photography by
Caylon Hackwith
Awards
Honorable Mention, 2020 AN Best of Design Awards; Longlist, 2019 Frame Design Awards
All Square is a restaurant for a non-profit that employs individuals with criminal records who are in need of educational and professional opportunities. The flagship restaurant, located along the Minnehaha Mile, converts 100 square meters into a community-oriented space for fast-casual dining.

To give the mission of All Square a physical presence, the design plays with layers of everyday elements - such as frames, mirrors and LED lights - to connect and distinguish people and objects in the restaurant. They create visual relationships in the moments of looking at, in, or through the material interventions.

Within the open floorplan the new material insertions organize the room while creating planned and unplanned opportunities for engagement. Setting the stage for a mental image, a point of view, about someone or something by compelling the occupants to look closely at the other side. For example: the frame is an object that both separates and links; the mirrors reflect the subject into a double position; and the neon lights act as the source for continuous painterly effects. Altogether, the positions, framing, depth, and lighting produce a mies en scene with many viewpoints. They construct a framework for seeing objects and things but from another point of view.

All Square