The site comprises a through block street level space and cellar extending from 23rd street almost 200 feet to 24th Street. The design leverages this condition to create a vibrant public space that links street to street, acting as an extension of the city. At the same time, the space provides for museum quality galleries that acknowledge the poster as a significant cultural and aesthetic artifact. These exhibition areas need to be self-contained to provide the required levels of environmental control, since climatizing the entire through block site would be infeasible. The resulting design is therefore conceived as a negotiation between two contrasting but complimentary types of space: a more enclosed gallery volume and a more open and active public promenade. The formal galleries are nested within the existing building shell like a ship in a bottle, while the zone in between is activated by a series of collective programs and takes advantage of the qualities of the extant architecture: its cast iron columns, barrel vaults and exposed brick walls.

The design is organized by splitting the existing space into two halves: the galleries to the east and the public passage to the west, but inflects this line of division diagonally through the space.