Celtica

On this busy corner of Allen Toussaint Boulevard, a new multi-tenant project creates a vibrant spot for locals. Designed to face the main street, large openings overlook the boulevard and wrap the corner to flow seamlessly into a covered outdoor space. Practis collaborated with Celtica — a corner bakery serving up French pastries and coffee — on the design of their space. 

The project includes off-street parking behind the building, where the accessible entrance is located. A shared hallway and bathrooms bifurcate the building and provide direct access to both tenants from the parking lot side. The other tenant space — built out as a warm, dark shell — now houses a juice bar.

In keeping with the low-slung scale of the neighborhood, the building is a modest, single-story box that references historic brick commercial structures, but whose careful detailing elevates its design to crisp modernism. The bakery and juice bar share a recessed entry porch, highlighted by an expressed steel lintel that introduces an asymmetry to the elevation, which naturally continues at the cantilevered canopy overhang on the bakery side.

Location 218 Allen Toussaint Boulevard, New Orleans Completed 2019 Size 1,420 sf