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ew York-based design firm ICRAVE has just completed an ephemera-inspired restaurant renovation for One Little West 12th in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, transforming it into The Collective.
Slated to open March 17, the restaurant’s design was helmed by Robert Delpazzo who sought out countless scraps of furniture, household objects and other cast-off objects, reappropriating the city’s “garbage” into a colorful, eclectic vision. Repurposed toys became chandeliers and car hoods became tables─even Craigslist’s “free” section was utilized to source countless treasures.
While Delpazzo was in the lost and found fray, combing through alleyways and ancient scrabble boards, he discovered “New York City’s bedazzler expert,” a Brooklyn-based couple with a penchant for salvaged wood as well as a bottle cap collector, all of which he absorbed into the project, truly embodying a “collective” and collaborative vision.
While a typical project of this size could cost as much as $2 million to bring to fruition, DelPazzo honored the current state of the economy, celebrating a frugal budget with unprecedented imagination─the ICRAVE team, through their use of recycled objects, created The Collective for a fraction of the estimated cost.