India Phelan-Boyd

Subverting the human experience of traditional retail spaces

The theory of psychological architecture or, ‘psychetecture’, is a key motif that is explored within the 1984 Mister X comic series by Dean Motter and Paul Rivoche. The story depicts the setting of Radiant City where its atmospheric conditions were constructed to become the city of dreams; to enhance its inhabitants’ sense of mind. However, the construction had gone terribly wrong, resulting in an epidemic of sleepwalkers and insomniacs.

After Dark is a comic store and coffee shop that explores the ability for architecture and spatial design to subvert the human experience of traditional retail spaces, providing a nighttime escape for customers from the standard everyday consumer experience of the area, similar to how the residents of Mister X’s Radiant City want to escape from their increasingly hectic, modernist setting. The store is activated from the street as customers are drawn in by glimpses of electrifying blue and red through the dystopic slanted windows, signifying that inside, the space is glowing and awake, a city of its own alive after dark.