Coffee City
Melissa Allison tracks Seattle's — and the world's — caffeine addiction.
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Starbucks unveils new store design at University Village
Posted by Melissa Allison
GREG GILBERT/THE SEATTLE TIMES
The University Village Starbucks opened this morning with a new interior after undergoing a remodeling project. See full photo gallery.
Here are some great pictures that photographer Greg Gilbert took yesterday afternoon at the newly remodeled Starbucks store in University Village.
It's hard to describe the new look, which is rustic in a way -- like Starbucks' newly designed store across from Pike Place Market -- but also modern.
At a shindig there last night, president of global development Arthur Rubinfeld -- who is credited with Starbucks' look from the early 1990s and wrote the book Built for Growth -- called it "a combination of organic, environmental materials and modern design."
The store is easier to navigate than it used to be and includes interesting materials like menu boards made of chalkboards from Garfield High School, shelving that used to be part of students' lockers there, and a bulletin board that's made from the metal sides of retired espresso makers.
The central pieces are three long community tables made from a fallen ash tree in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood.
Starbucks' move toward recycled and reused materials could mean the stores need fewer remodeling overhauls.
"The design we are doing now is more timeless, and I think they will last longer,"said Liz Muller, director of global concept design who has an artistic flare that shows up in her clothing and her office at Starbucks, where the skeletons of a couple of lighting fixtures from the old University Village floor hang with bare lightbulbs in them. The other fixtures are in Lake Washington rusting to get a new look for a future store remodel.
Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company
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