The view from Manhattan

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The Rockefeller Center has played host to Studio Optix for almost 20 years, but just over two years ago, the practice moved just a few doors to a larger unit.

‘With the location bringing in so many people, I wanted to do something really special with the store, so we drafted in some top architects from Germany,’ says owner and optometrist Mitch Cassel.

With the city so densely populated, space is at a real premium, which presented some interesting challenges in the build. Optician interviews Cassel in a testing room, which, on the face of it, has a minimalistic aesthetic and a bijou feel. It’s only when Cassel begins to slide out cabinets with testing equipment do you start to appreciate the ingenious design that has gone into the testing rooms and the store itself. ‘We have over 6,000 frames in the store, but the majority of them are kept in bespoke drawers,’ says Cassel.