I had just started working in the Architecture Department of Crate & Barrel when I was asked to come up with an idea for how to link the Crate & Barrel Home Store on the first floor of Atlanta's Lenox Mall with the Crate & Barrel Furniture Store on the second floor of the Lenox Mall. Crate & Barrel customers shopping at the home store had to leave the store and take the mall escalator, stairs, or elevator to visit the Crate & Barrel furniture store. Customers did not enjoy this experience and it was not the type of experience Crate & Barrel was used to providing their customers.

The solution was an in store elevator. The concept was to use a glass elevator and glass elevator enclosure so as not to disrupt the customer's view through the store. Glass elevator enclosures were not the kind of thing you could order out of a catalog so all of the glass enclosure details and components needed to be custom designed and fabricated. The Atlanta Building Department was cautious in issuing a permit for our proposed design.

Now that there is a new Crate & Barrel home store at Lenox, I'm assuming our/my glass elevator design no longer exists. This is the unfortunate downside of architecture. Sometimes the projects we spend our time and creative energies on either never get built or have lifespans shorter than our own.

The glass elevator at Lenox Mall was an important project in my architectural career. This was the first time I had the opportunity to custom design components in a variety of materials, i.e., glass, steel, aluminum, and wood. It was also the first time I worked on a project outside of the town where I was employed so I had the opportunity to travel to Atlanta a couple times to check in on the progress of our project. Overseeing the fabrication of this project and then finally seeing customers move vertically between Crate & Barrel Home Store and Crate & Barrel Furniture store, their eyes "shopping" the whole time they travelled, was a thrill I'll never forget.