Andre Fu

Hong Kong-based architect and interior designer André Fu has completed the first global flagship store for electronic accessory brand Casetify in Osaka, combining traditional Japanese shoji paper lanterns with bright colours.

The store, which marks the first retail project by Fu in Japan, was informed by the urban landscape of the Shinsaibashi neighbourhood in Osaka where the store is located.
The store is located in Shinsaibashi, the main shopping area in OsakaAccording to Fu, the interiors aim to bring “the allure of the dynamic Shinsaibashi neighbourhood into the store”.
“The overall concept is rooted in a vision to celebrate the distinct context of the project with contrasting shapes and forms, capturing the neighbourhood’s cinematic streetscape in a world where bold geometries juxtapose against each other,” said Fu.
Curved shoji screens form the product display wallThe storefront was designed as a floor-to-ceiling shoji lantern framed in bright orange. Customers are greeted by a round display table encircled by cylindrical shoji screens, with the same circular arrangement mirrored at the back of the store and its upper floor.

At the centre of the Casetify store sit cabinets that have been decorated with old phone cases, donated by customers in the recycling box located next to them.
A secret shoji window at the rear of the ground floor can be slid open to unveil customised online purchases.

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“A lot of my work is rooted in the idea of a journey that takes the contextual quality of each project into an architectural medium,” Fu explained.
“The world of shoji lanterns that goes around you, that folds and unfolds, creates that effect,” he added.
“It transports you from the everyday reality of the neighbourhood to an imaginary, illusionistic expression that blends a relaxed sense of luxury with the popping Casetify colours that the brand is so well known for.”
Cabinets are covered with materials made from recycled phone casesFu is known for his work on luxury hotels and restaurants, including the Upper House hotel in Hong Kong, the Berkeley London, and the Mitsui hotel in Kyoto.
More recently, he created a two-person “conversation” chair in collaboration with Louis Vuitton’s Objects Nomades, and furnished a model apartment inside the Jean Nouvel tower in New York with his homeware collection.
The photography is courtesy of Casetify.

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