Just as the Internet boom has produced winners and losers, so the spoils of Silicon Valley’s growth have been distributed unevenly. Palo Alto, for example, today is home to a Burberry store and SoulCycle fitness studio. Meanwhile, the small commercial core of Los Altos looks ostensibly unchanged from analog days, and struggles to find its footing against larger commercial developments nearby.
In 2009, a progressive local business called Passerelle Investment Company was founded to turn the tide in Los Altos’ favor. Among its activities, the group acquires downtown retail properties and invites different architects to redo the spaces. In order to position this collection as an urbanist alternative to shopping malls, “They said, ‘Do something you think would be interesting for the scale of the street and in character with a future vision of downtown Los Altos, and treat the relationship between the street and interior as generously as possible,’” says Tom Kundig, principal and owner of Seattle-based Olson Kundig Architects.
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