SECRET LAIR: Townsend and Yoto’s secret apartment (opposite) was originally a 750-square- foot storage room situated within the mall’s parking garage. To furnish their clandestine apartment, the artists made a point to buy items from stores within the mall itself.

And things went on this way for four years — until late September 2007, when Townsend was caught by mall security and arrested by the police. He was charged with a misdemeanor for trespassing and given six months probation.

Howard Wen: What was appealing about living at the mall?

Adriana Yoto: We wanted to create a space that embodied the design ideology of the mall. Our end goal was to create a space that one would think was actually part of the mall. We wanted people to feel like they were walking into Crate & Barrel or into a page of Domino magazine.

Photograph by Jason Liu

HW: The interior design of a lot of mall stores is indeed appealing. So that’s what you were going for in your space — re-creating that kind of design sensibility?

AY: The micromanagement of creating clutter-free homes and all these different storage techniques, creating the perfect pantry, the perfect closets — I think a critical culture has emerged recently of

hyperorganized homes prepared to be seen by guests at any moment.

HW: Before you got caught, did you have an end game in mind with this project? Was there ever a point planned in the future when you would be finished with it?

AY: We never thought of it as a “project” — it was sort of this hobby integrated into our lives, and we never thought anybody would find out about it. We never intended it to be public. So we never imagined the end. We just imagined constantly improving and evolving it.

HW: How did you sneak into the apartment each day?

Michael Townsend: There was an architectural anomaly in the building that essentially acted as a private entranceway for us. It was a passage between two walls that was at its narrowest about 11 inches and spread to about 2 feet. It was about 60 feet deep. If you stood outside the mall, in the right place, and threw a baseball with accuracy, you could throw it into our home. Once you went

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