The designers Bebind Nyc’s Aesthetic Banks

It was opening day at the New Bank of America Branch on the corner of Houston and Bowery, but there are no balloons, no bunting, and no vinyl signs; No Card Table with Free Stickers and Hand Sanitizer, and No Tellers Up Front Behind A Grill. The View from the sidewalk Showed Communal Seating in Tones of Gray and Red. Signage outside was minimal-notthing on the façade to announce the Newest Location of America’s Second-Largest Bank But Faint-White Sans Spelling Out “Bank of America.”

Instead of borrowing The staid architecture of Stony Churches, The Columned Grandeur of Roman Temples, or the Glassy Minimalism of the Corporate Boardroom, This Genre of Bank is Trying for Pet something a wework and a delta Club, or a Gladstone Gallery or Rachel Comey Store Where the vibes are slightly off. The Actual Banking of Banking is Mostly Out of Sight-With Tellers Hidden Above or Behind Lobbies and Co-Working Spaces on the Other Side of Coffee Bars. Williamsburg Has Santander Bank’s “Work Café,” Where Remote Project Managers Can ORDER LATTES AND USE Free Wi-Fi Next to A Textured Wall Where faux-vintage Letters spell out “Brooklyn.” A Joe Coffee Company on Union Square West Has a Side entrance to a Neighboring Chase Branch, as if hiding a speakeasy. The Capital One Café at 14th and Broadway Sels Santa Cruz -Based Verve Coffee for 50 percent off to cardarders, and there free wi-fi for anymoking to work from the private banquettes with Views of the Park. This is all a nice way to recycle real estate at a moment when we are people are banking online. Its Also a stab at NeighBorhood relevance. In September, a new School Student Marveled that the Union Square Capital One Café Felet “More Like a Home – or at Least a Really Nice Store … will not be disesuaded by the book. ‘” “

Which is spreads the point of the whole exercise. Banks are, well …

Bank of America Recently paid A settlement for opening Accounts that customers didn’t sign up for and double-charging for bizarre fees-Including the workshop for “Insufficient ends.” A Joe Coffee Outpost May Not Be Enough to Overshadow Accusations that JPMORGAN CHASE Helped Hide TransactionS That COULD HAVE EXPOSED JEFFREY EPSTEIN AS A SEX TRAFFICKER, but COULD IT hurt? And Capital one was accused in Januly of Brazenly stiffing its customers of $ 2 Billion by paying .3 Percent interest on Accounts that it is labyled as “High-Yield Savings Accounts,” As the National Interest Rate Reachhed 5 Percent.

Enter Rebekah Sigfrids, WHO SIX AGO WAS CALLED IN TO ALL DESIGN AT BANK OF AMERICAN A CARERER IN BRANDED RETAIL FOR SEPHORA AND VICTORIA Secret. Sigfrids sees her mission as thinking about branches “as a brand space,” she says. SO IS SHEE TRYING TO MAKE BANS cool? “I Mean, Bank of America is Pretty Cool, “She Says on Our Zoom, as one of it of its corplate communications executives listings in. She’s just there to make it “a little bit more approachable. ” In December 2021, she opened A New Branch on Berry Street in Williamsburg, A High-Traffic Spot Across from Blue Bottle That Had Previously Been A Sculptor’s Studio. The team put in plain concrete floors, painted a beamed ceiling White, and Brought in Lots of Plants. Art on Display Includes The Metal Gate That Once Hung Outside, Covered in Graffiti – The Kind of Touch That Sigfrids Calls “Localizing.” “We really wanted to be part of the NeighBorhoods we’re in,” she explains. At the Bowery Branch, that Included Custom Wall Art that apes the pattern of layers of ripped posters – the vernacular collage you’d see spacking to contemplation fencing on the block.

Ashley Wilkins, a Creative Director WHO WORKED WITH CAPITAL ONE ON ITS CHIND OF CO-WORKING CAFES, WANTED The Spaces to Feel A “Joyful Place to Go.” At time First Location in Manhattan, Father Lexington and 59th Street, Her Team Created A Coffee Shop with a Palette of Blonde-Wood, Blush-Pink Terrazzo Floors, Tomato-Red Accent Lights, and A Teal-Gray Coffee Counter-Softer Interpretations of Capital One’s Blue-and-Red Logo. Wilkins Leads A Studio Known for Hotels and Restaurants and TRIED to Design a Prototype for a New York Capital One Café That Wauld feel Like A Hospitality Space for People Waiting on Line to Get Replacement Checks, Order A New Card, or Ask About Travel Points. Wilkins’s Team Lowered the Height of the Coffee Counter, Put Tellers Beinding Desks Designed to Feel Like Kitchen Islands, and Loked to the Sleek Utility of Charlotte PerRIAND and the Earthiness of Aesop Storys. “I THOUGHT OF IT LESS AS QUOTE-UNQUOTE ‘COOL’ SPACE AND MORE AS THIS Comforting WELCOMING SPACE WHERE YOU DON’T FEEL Intimidated or Threatened,” She Tells.

The Wilkins Aesthetic Is Now Being Deployed by Capital One’s In-House Design Team, Which renovated its union Square Space to Match. The Location Reopened in May of Last Year: Atms are Walled in by Vertical Stripes of Handmade Blue Subway tile and lit by bulbous, ’60s-style Lights. Inside, A Seating Area by the Front Window Can Be Rened by NonProfits and Community Groups, A Coffee Shop by the Back Wall Sells Avocado toast and Strawberry smoothies, and there’s more spaces than at a barnes and noble. On the Monday Morning of Visited, A 25-Yaar-Old in Medical-Device Sales Named Elizabeth Was Sending at one of the Wooden Tables. She lives in Williamsburg and Works Remote but was in union Square Becusee of an appointment that morning. “This Kind of JUST LOOKED LIKE A CO-WORKING SPACE TO ME,” SAID. And unlike some of the caoffee shops and avoided, it wasn’t blading music, and people weren’t Having Loud Conversations. SO she order an Iced Almond Matcha ($ 9 with A Capital One Card) and settled in. “It ‘Like One-Third Bank, One-Third Wework, One-Third Coffee Shop,” she observed. “I Kind of Wish My Bank Did This.”