This month, Design Store(y) goes a little farther downtown, and across the bridge, to brownstone-filled Brooklyn to tour Module R, an architect-owned and curated enterprise that specializes in, you guessed it, modular art and design products. Indeed, all the items in this red-fronted shop on the border of Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill can be reconfigured, customized, stacked, nested, and otherwise personalized. That’s what we call focus. We chatted with the man behind the movable pieces, owner Donald Rattner.

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Third time’s a charm, and an absolute classic. Following on the heels of David Stark’s innovative pop-up at Haus Interior and the stark white space of Seattle boutique Object, Design Store(y) delves into the downtown outpost of the MoMA Design Store. We visited the SoHo location, camera in hand, following an interview with MoMA Design Store president, Kathy Thornton-Bias.

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For our second installment of Design Store(y), we travel to the opposite coast, to the beautifully spare and pure white shop, Object, in Seattle. Owned and curated by local photographer Charlie Schuck, Object was born out of his love and admiration for design, composition, and the Northwest.

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Editor’s Note: After asking you what you were most interested in seeing more of on Design Milk, we decided to launch a brand new regular column called Design Store(y), which will spotlight brick-and-mortar retail shops from around the world. We’ll get an intimate look at the products on the shelves and the store-y (ha! get it?) behind them, direct from the store owners and managers themselves. Perhaps you’ll get the chance to visit one of the featured stores yourself one day, but if not, at least you can take our virtual tour. This first article is a bit of an oddball, as it features a shop within a shop, but we’re so excited to have the inside scoop on this unique shopping experience.

Over the last nine months, designer David Stark developed a collection of 75 wood shop-inspired home accessories. Last week, Haus Interior shop owner Nina Freudenberger emptied her shelves, ceding her boutique in New York City’s NoLIta to Stark’s creations. Wood Shop, an event that pushes the boundaries of traditional retail in that it’s more “ambush,” as Stark’s coined it, than pop-up, runs through February 27, 2012.

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