NOKA Chocolate Dallas Boutique Wins AIA Honor Award

DALLAS, October 1, 2007 – NOKA Chocolate is proud to
announce that its flagship boutique in Dallas, Texas has
been presented with an Honor Award from the Dallas
Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) for
Small Buildings. An Honor is the highest level of recognition
given by the AIA and NOKA was selected from a field of
forty-nine entries.  

The AIA works to “Encourage, Promote, Advance, and
Coordinate efforts to uphold the highest standard of the
Architectural Profession in the community.”

Architect Joey Shimoda of the Shimoda Design Group
(www.shimodadesign.com) created the stunning boutique
in Victory Park in partnership with Dallas-based architectural
group, BOKA Powell (www.bokapowell.com).  

Joey Shimoda was inspired by the synergy and vision that Noah Houghton, President of
NOKA Chocolate, displayed during their first meeting.  “I could tell from the beginning that
we could create something truly unique.   A space that would challenge the traditional
vision of how a chocolate boutique could look and feel.”  

Passers-by are stopped in their tracks by the dramatic impact created by the stunning
design made to resemble a cacao pod. The award-winning architects worked closely with
the boutique’s owners, Noah Houghton and Katrina Merrem, to create an organically
inspired luxurious space.

Upon entering the store one immediately feels a sense of exquisite luxury, a sense of
indulgence. Both the boutique’s deeply grooved, textured walls and the elliptical ceiling
which flows to the floor, represent the organic nature and physical aspects of a cacao pod.
Cascading from the ceiling, a hand-blown Italian glass sculpture represents a droplet of
water, which symbolizes the beginning of life for the cacao tree, as well as the purity of
NOKA’s chocolates.  


The NOKA Chocolate flagship boutique is located at 2422 Victory Park Lane next to the W
Hotel, which was presented with the Honor for Large Buildings in Dallas by the AIA. The
boutique opened in May of 2007 in Victory Park, one of the most significant, master-
planned urban developments in the history of the South West (www.victorypark.com).

NOKA Chocolate is a luxury chocolatier, which specializes in pure, unadulterated single-
estate chocolate. Ranked ‘#1 luxury chocolate in the world’ by the food editors of TASTE,
and ‘Best Chocolate in America’ by The Nikkei, NOKA Chocolate creates magical moments
and memories for its customers with it’s luxurious, unadulterated, single-estate chocolates.