A/D/O is a former warehouse in Brooklyn that has been converted into a design space.A/D/O by MINI
Brooklyn design space A/D/O plans to set up a location in Shanghai before the end of the year, Managing Director Nate Pinsley said over the weekend during a presentation at the Design Shanghai design fair.
“It’s so exciting to open our second location because it’s such an important part of the global conversation about design and technology,” Pinsley said. “In Brooklyn, we’ve had great conversations” but “we’re missing a lot of the world and missing an important part of the conversation.”
The Shanghai venue will be located in the city’s centrally located Jing’An district. Beyond that and the 2019 opening date, he didn’t add many details. A/D/O envisions the space not “as a copy of Brooklyn but as something that is made specifically for Shanghai,” Pinsley said.
A/D/O is located in a 23,000 square foot former warehouse in Greenpoint, Brooklyn’s Industrial Business Zone.
A/D/O takes its name from the history of Mini, the owner of the business. Alec Issigonis set up a design team to create a small car: Amalgamated Drawing Office, or A/D/O. The first Mini was built in 1959. The Mini brand is owned by BMW.
A/D/O will position itself as a creative work space in Shanghai at a time when shared workspaces have become popular around China. Major investors in the shared workspace area include WeWork and uCommune.
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