Case Study: Wildflower NYC

How Handwerk Art and Design Brought Wildflower NYC to Life, On Time and On Budget

Client Profile

About the Project

Wildflower NYC is a botanical-inspired bar and restaurant located steps from the High Line 23rd Street in Manhattan. Interior designer Angela Belton of Handwerk Art and Design was brought into the project mid-stream, tasked with translating the client’s vision, a luxurious, Victorian greenhouse aesthetic with an elevated cocktail menu, into a fully realized dining and bar experience.

The space features warm woods, inlaid copper bar detailing, marble tabletops, custom millwork, and lush botanical wallpapers, designed to feel simultaneously elegant enough for a special night out and welcoming enough for a casual weekday lunch.

The Challenge

The Wildflower project came with a tight timeline and significant complexity:

• The project was fast-moving, with little runway for extended sourcing or vendor lead times.

• The space comprised multiple distinct dining and bar areas, each requiring its own material specifications and coordination.

• Key furniture pieces had to be quick-ship and in-stock, requiring rapid-fire sourcing, vetting, and approval cycles.

• Contractors needed complete, accurate spec books with minimal lead time, often with last-minute urgency.

• A single wood tone needed to flow consistently across the bar face, custom millwork, and tabletops, requiring materials to be linked and tracked across multiple spaces.

Without a streamlined system, managing the pace of sourcing, keeping materials organized across spaces, and getting documentation out quickly to contractors would have created significant operational risk. 

Why DesignSpec

Angela uses DesignSpec from the very beginning of every project, and Wildflower was no exception. From day one, she set up room tags and skeleton specs to map materials to spaces before the design was even fully resolved.

DesignSpec gave the team the infrastructure to move at the speed the project demanded:

Speed of Specification

The Web Clipper extension allowed Angela and her team to pull items directly from vendor websites into the spec in as little as 20 to 30 seconds, compared to two to three minutes using traditional methods. For a fast-paced project like Wildflower, this alone saved hours every week.     

Last-Minute Reports, Delivered Confidently

When contractors needed full spec books on short notice, often late on a Friday, Handwerk could generate a complete, page-ready spec report with a single click and send it immediately. No scrambling, no reformatting.        

Multi-Space Coordination Made Simple

With multiple bar and dining areas to manage, DesignSpec’s room tagging system kept everything orderly. Linking a single wood tone across the bar face, custom millwork, and tabletops was straightforward, ensuring consistency without having to manually cross-reference across documents.

Procurement and Budget Tracking

The FF&E Budget Tool auto-populated from existing specs, allowing Angela to generate a client-ready budget and send it for approval without rebuilding data from scratch. This kept procurement moving in lockstep with design decisions.

Results   

By integrating DesignSpec from the outset, Handwerk Art and Design was able to deliver Wildflower NYC on schedule despite the project’s compressed timeline and complexity.

Time Savings

• Spec creation time reduced from 2–3 minutes to 20–30 seconds per item using the Web Clipper

• 36 hours saved across sourcing, specifying, and documentation tasks over the course of the project

• Full spec books generated and distributed in minutes, not hours

Project Coordination

• All materials across multiple spaces tracked in a single, organized system from day one
• Consistent material specifications linked across the bar face, millwork, and tabletops
• Contractor communication streamlined with on-demand, complete spec reports
• 41 vendors managed through DesignSpec for this project

• FF&E budgets auto-populated and sent to clients for approval without manual data re-entry

• Quick-ship furniture sourced, clipped, specified, and sent for bidding rapidly despite tight timelines

• 6 custom items specified and coordinated through DesignSpec

“The Web Clipper cuts out so much time, I can make a spec in 20 to 30 seconds versus 2 to 3 minutes. It cuts down hours from my week.” - Handwerk Art and Design

The Outcome

Wildflower NYC opened to a warm neighborhood reception. The space has developed a loyal local following, with regulars returning regularly for happy hour, the cocktail program, and the distinctive ambiance that the design team envisioned from the start.

Angela describes the finished project as coming out exactly as envisioned, a result she attributes in part to having the right systems in place to manage the pace and complexity of the project. DesignSpec didn’t just keep things organized; it gave the team the confidence to move quickly without missing anything.

Looking AheadAngela is using DesignSpec on all upcoming projects, including Velvet Cowboy, a maximalist bar concept on the Upper West Side. With an intentionally over-Angela is using DesignSpec on all upcoming projects, including Velvet Cowboy, a maximalist bar concept on the Upper West Side. With an intentionally over-the-top material palette, she notes that DesignSpec is essential for keeping the specification process from getting out of control, “because it would just get too much, too quickly.”   

“It’s so easy to create a report that if my contractor needs a full spec book, I can send it to him in no time at all, late on a Friday, as they tend to need.” - Handwerk Art and Design

See how DesignSpec can transform your next project and start your free trial. 

Want to download this case study? Click here!