Sundae School opens Chinatown flagship designed by Nohar Agadi

Dae Lim's apparel and lifestyle brand Sundae School, known for blending Korean heritage with streetwear and stoner culture, has opened its first physical store at 117 Hester Street in New York's Chinatown. The 450 sq ft space, formerly the studio of minimalist artist Sol LeWitt, was designed by Lim's husband Nohar Agadi, an architect who previously worked at Foster + Partners and now runs Nohar's Ark. Agadi referenced the Haeinsa temple in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea—a UNESCO World Heritage site—in the store's modular aluminum display system, which mimics the temple's wooden shelf system for Buddhist texts. The flexible structure can be reconfigured for events like community gatherings or World Cup screenings. A grid of light-strip fixtures by lighting designer Frank Fabia evokes paper lantern canopies of temple courtyards. The interior is wrapped in light pink floor-to-ceiling curtains, referencing the Korean hibiscus flower, which also section off changing rooms and offices. Consulting architect Andy Kim and Seoul-based artist Hyunhee Kim contributed custom artworks based on Sundae School's logo, a fusion of the Korean national emblem and the word 'tongbu' (weed in Korean). The store features reinterpreted traditional Korean doors and frosted acrylic panes. Lim chose Chinatown to honor the Asian American diaspora's roots.