Down To Business – February 2015

2/03/15
BUNNYFiSH Studio
The DTLV architecture firm BUNNYFiSH Studio was born at the bar counter of the The Beat Coffeehouse in 2011, right at the cusp of the downtown transformation. Co-owners Craig Palacios and Tina Wichmann soon found themselves upgrading to an 8-foot by 8-foot micro-office in Emergency Arts, the space that houses The Beat Coffeehouse, which was then becoming the heart of the downtown community. Now the BUNNYFiSH team is settled in a large and bright studio space in one of their own architecture projects, the newly renovated John E. Carson building.
Palacios was born and raised in Las Vegas and has always has called downtown home well before it earned the moniker “DTLV.” Winchmann, originally from Los Angeles, moved to Las Vegas a decade ago and found herself missing her urban roots. When the two friends decided to leave their former firms and start their own architecture practice, downtown was a natural choice.
“We wanted to be in a place where other people were doing creative things,” said Winchmann. “Our little downtown community back then was full of start-up companies and creative minds. It was good fit and made coming to work every day exciting. It was like we had a giant firm of creative people, but in reality it was a lot of small firms working out of the same building. We were just looking for creative stimulus; we had no idea it would be the core of Las Vegas’ renaissance.” The firm has an impressive list of projects in Downtown, including the stylistically impressive Inspire Theater. BUNNYFiSH took an existing space, a former convenience store, and transformed it into the three story multi-use space it is today, growing from a single story into a structure that supports a theater, a café and newsstand, several bars and a rooftop space that overlooks Fremont Street. Winchmann says of the space, “Each space is designed to evoke a unique experience, while allowing the spaces to connect and encourage exploration and collisions.”
BUNNYFiSH draws inspiration not from established aesthetics so much as allowing a project to build its own identity, driven by the client, the community context and from whatever existing space out of which it’s growing. When working with adaptive reuse of existing buildings, BUNNYFiSH architectslet the historical aesthetic drive the style while adding contemporary elements that provide function, contrast, and the element of surprise.
Winchmann says, “While working with Tony [Hsieh] and Downtown Project, we have had the opportunity to not only design great spaces, but include elements of whimsy. When someone would ask what type of architecture we were doing at the time, we would respond ‘weird stuff downtown.’ That was a huge compliment to our client. It is a dream for an architect to make things both functional and fun.”
Photo: Courtesy of BUNNYFiSH Studio