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This compact eyewear store in New York’s West Village has been divided into “on stage” and “backstage” areas, as part of a design studio Tutto Bene’s “love letter to theatrical glamour”. More
Pink tiles and lilac upholstery enliven the interiors of this eyewear store in Phoenix by Los Angeles designer Adi Goodrich. More
Design studio Tutto Bene looked to surrealist artworks and Italian modernist exhibition design when creating the interior for this eyewear store in Islington, north London.
Set in the Angel area, the 60-square-metre store belongs to eyewear brand Cubitts and features an interior concept conceived by Tutto Bene based on the architecture of the space itself.
A 1960s glass and chrome chandelier decorates Cubitts’ Angel store”It’s a long, slim room with an atelier atmosphere due to the strong contrasts of light and shadow,” the studio’s co-founder Oskar Kohnen told Dezeen.
“The atelier feeling immediately evoked a sense of being at an artist’s loft, this feeling of residential elements mixed with workshop-like rawness is what we wanted to embrace.”
Design studio Tutto Bene referenced art movements and artworks for the interiorTo underline this feeling, the studio added decorative pieces that nod to different art movements throughout the space.
“The individual elements of the store design reference surrealist artworks and Italian modernist exhibition design from the 1940s and 50s through play on perspective, rational spatial composition and painterly use of colour,” Kohnen said.
Green silk panels were placed along an entire wallA skylight lets plenty of light into the Cubitts shop, which Tutto Bene reflected via glass details placed inside the store.
“We didn’t want to over-complicate the dynamic of the space,” the studio’s co-founder Felizia Berchtold told Dezeen.
Tutto Bene references Streamline Moderne in tiny New York eyewear store
“Instead we placed monolithic elements within it that offer points of interest and grounding,” she added.
“Each element speaks a clear material language. There are hues of greens and yellow, the transparency of the nile glass, as well as areas of black that balance the space’s abundance of natural light.”
Glass details reflect light in the storeThe slim, rectangular store features glass shelves set against a backdrop of sage-green silk from fabric house Holland & Sherry along the entire right-hand wall, in another reference to art and artworks.
“The long shelf stretching the entire length of the space represents an artist’s easel, as well as exhibition tableaus,” Berchtold explained.
“The natural slubs and beautiful colour variation that the silk brings provide a reverent backdrop for the frames displayed on it, whilst being a quiet artwork in itself.”
A black volume stores custom-made framesAlong the left-hand side, Tutto Bene placed black storage and display volumes, as well as Cubitts’ eye-examination room.
Kohnen and Berchtold designed many of the furniture pieces personally for the interior, among them an undulating orange seat.
The store is located in Angel, Islington”Most elements are bespoke pieces we designed, including the Uovo chaise,” Berchtold said.
“Then there’s some vintage treasures such as the 1960s glass and chrome chandelier and a group of FontanaArte prism-like pieces that complement and contextualise our fixture designs, as well as photographic works by Lee Miller, casting the store through her surrealist lens.”
Tutto Bene has previously designed the interior of Cubitts’ first New York store as well as the steel-and-mirror Nightingale restaurant in London’s Mayfair.
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Curved metallic surfaces influenced by early 20th century American industrial design form displays at this compact store in New York City, designed by London studio Tutto Bene for eyewear brand Cubitts.
Tutto Bene was briefed to create an elegant and meticulously crafted space for Cubitts’ first store outside of the UK that evokes the past century of New York’s history.
Cubitts has opened a store in New York CityThe store at 103 Mercer Street has a total floor area of just 25 square metres, which the designers claimed makes it possibly the smallest retail site in all of SoHo.
Felizia Berchtold and Oskar Kohnen of Tutto Bene told Dezeen that they set out to create an experiential and intriguing interior with “the ornate precision of a jewellery box”.
The interior was designed by London studio Tutto Bene”Within the retail landscape of SoHo there is a pop-up feeling and one sees a lot of set-design quality fit-outs,” the designers said.
“We wanted to counterbalance this trend by creating a space made to last for a decade and to communicate the value that is put into the product inside it.”
Charlotte Perriand’s LC8 stool is among the vintage furnishingsThe functional and precisely detailed design of Cubitts’ spectacles provided the main inspiration for the store, which also references the streamlined forms of Streamline Moderne – an aerodynamic offshoot of art deco that emerged in the 1930s.
“We took that engineering aspect of spectacle-making and interpreted it in kinetic elements throughout the store, like the rotary mirrors and the sculptural steel curve, reflecting hues of light like the sparkling towers we know New York for,” the duo said.
The dominant colour is a brick-red hue borrowed from New York’s streetscapeAn S-shaped metal display at the centre of the space helps to define the flow of movement whilst echoing the smooth silhouettes of the brand’s eyewear.
Walls clad in black ebonised ash create a dark backdrop, against which soft lighting and pops of colour create a theatrical effect reminiscent of the paintings of American artist Edward Hopper.
Oskar Kohnen fills “well-curated” London office with mid-century modern furniture
“Areas of glamorous darkness are peppered with light,” said Tutto Bene. “Shimmering reflections, reminiscent of city lights, emphasise the store’s meticulous detailing and represent the care and attention put into the products it encloses.”
The main colour used is a brick-red hue borrowed from the New York streetscape, which according to the studio adds “some playfulness and art deco glamour, contrasting the muted black with dramatic warmth and texture”.
Tutto Bene also created custom hand-shaped mirrors for the storeThe geometric forms used throughout the store recall the works of artist Donald Judd, who once lived and worked across the street. The artistic tributes continue in the restroom, which is papered with aluminium foil as an homage to Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory.
Carefully chosen vintage pieces including wall lights from Austrian brand Kalmar, Charlotte Perriand’s LC8 stool and an Opalino vase by Tommaso Buzzi complement the store’s colour and material palette.
The bathroom was papered with aluminium foil Tutto Bene also created bespoke mirrors, which customers can use when trying out different frames. The marble objects were hand-crafted at a stone workshop in Florence, Italy.
“In the pared-back store, these hand-carved glove-like marble sculptures draw attention through their surrealist appearance,” the designers added.
“When you pick them up, they lie heavy in the hand. The weight sharpens one’s consciousness and gives the gesture of looking in the mirror a considered quality.”
The wallpaper is an homage to Andy Warhol’s Silver FactoryTo celebrate the store’s launch, Cubitts released a collection of seven frames inspired by New York landmarks including the Flatiron Building and Radio City Music Hall.
The opening follows a series of new Cubitts stores in the UK including one in a former jellied-eel restaurant and another in a 19th-century London townhouse.
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Romanian practice Bogdan Ciocodeica Studio played with the idea of “blurry vision” in this eyewear store in Bucharest, where pixelated furnishings sit against translucent latex curtains.
This is the third space that Bogdan Ciocodeica Studio has designed for Lunet, having worked on the eyewear brand’s inaugural Bucharest store and another branch in the city of Cluj-Napoca.
Lunet has opened its second store in the Romanian capitalThe interiors of the two other locations play with colour and metallics, but the firm wanted this store to look like “a playful and pixelated environment”.
“All the shapes and volumes are stylised and synthesised to their essence, stripped of unnecessary information so that they become almost low-resolution images, containing only the vital information,” Bogdan Ciocodeica Studio explained.
Cutouts around the shelves are meant to make them look pixelatedGlasses are displayed on tall wooden shelving units that were installed at intervals around the store’s periphery, with square cutouts designed to mimic the blocky form of pixels.
Translucent latex curtains were hung between the shelves. “[They] give depth and texture to the otherwise straight walls, granting it almost a blurry vision-like effect,” added the studio.
Similar pixel-style cutouts can be seen on the store’s chairs, rug and service deskMore glasses are showcased on freestanding L-shaped partitions, each incorporating a full-length mirror and set on wheels so they can be easily moved around.
A seating area at the heart of the store is furnished with two wide-set wooden chairs, their armrests featuring the same pixelated edging as the shelves.
Underneath the chairs is a large burnt-orange rug with pixel-shaped openings that offer fun peeks at the store’s gridded tile flooring.
Gridded tile flooring runs throughout the spacePixel-style cutouts were also made in the wooden service desk, which sits directly beneath a lightbox displaying Lunet’s logo.
Eye tests are carried out in a secondary room towards the rear of the store. All the walls here were painted brick-red except one, which features a brightly-hued surrealist graphic of a woman wearing sunglasses.
The eye test room includes a graphic feature wallA number of other architects and designers have incorporated pixels into their projects. Canadian studio Partisans used pale yellow bricks to create an undulating pixelated facade for a home in Toronto.
And ODA also staggered apartment blocks to form a pixelated residential block in New York.
The photography is by Vlad Patru.
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Sculptural custom-made furniture adds artistic flourishes to this otherwise minimal showroom and head office, designed by Spanish interiors studio Isern Serra for eyewear brand Gigi Studios.
Isern Serra was tasked with creating a holistic scheme for the 900-square-metre headquarters, occupying one floor of a building in the town of Sant Cugat del Vallès just north of Barcelona.
Isern Serra has filled the Gigi Studios headquarters with custom furnitureThe brief called for a design that creates a sense of spaciousness and comfort while reflecting founder Patricia Remo’s vision of Gigi Studios as a brand.
“It is also serene, warm and elegant and conceptually close to the idea of a studio and away from the concept of a traditional office, without losing the practicality and functionality,” Isern Serra explained.
Rows of desks were replaced with more intimate work areasThe building’s rectangular floor plan features a central service core housing the lifts and toilets, with the workspaces, meeting rooms, kitchen and showroom occupying the surrounding O-shaped open space.
Serra and his team positioned the kitchen and showroom at one end of the plan and placed the meeting rooms and client areas at the other, leaving the longer sides open to optimise circulation.
Concrete bases for the work tables were cast in situVarious bespoke furniture pieces, conceived by Isern Serra as “small works of art”, bring a distinct personality to the different formal and informal spaces.
These interventions were designed to embody Gigi Studios’ design ethos while standing out against the warm and minimal backdrop.
“The project aims to experiment with the limits of the workspace and seek a new concept that goes hand in hand with the idea of domus and museum,” Isern Serra explained.
Curtains can be used to cordon off the lounge areaA large circular sofa framed in stainless steel provides a bold statement in one of the reception areas.
The sculptural piece fulfils a dual function as a seating area and a space for working, with tables and book storage integrated into the backrest around the perimeter.
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Similarly, the building’s central core is wrapped in a layer of built-in storage units including circular stainless-steel niches that incorporate shelves for displaying books and materials.
Rather than a typical office layout with rows of workstations, the large open spaces are separated into more intimate zones with a more domestic scale.
A Boa Pouf by Sabine Marcelis provides informal seatingNext to the lobby is a design area featuring tables made from concrete that was cast in situ. Task seating surrounds the work table and a taller table is accompanied by stools, while lenses for the different glasses are stored in a custom-made unit.
The second workspace features a large C-shaped sofa with a concrete base that was also cast in situ. Custom-made tables and one of Sabine Marcelis’s Boa Poufs complete this lounge-style space, which can be visually separated from the rest of the office using curtains on either side.
The showroom is visible from the office through a circular windowA circular window with rounded edges provides a glimpse of the showroom, which is dominated by two sculptural tables with concrete tops supported by rough chunks of travertine stone.
A built-in tiered display is used to highlight different Gigi Studios’ eyewear. The rest of the collection is housed in a backlit cabinet, while a mirror-fronted unit conceals a large screen used for presentations.
The kitchen is located next to the showroom so that the two spaces can easily be used together for events. Here, a homely, Mediterranean feel is created via a five-metre-long sharing table, custom-made alongside the accompanying stools.
Display tables in the showroom are held up by rough chunks of travertineThe sizeable kitchen island is finished in micro-cement and features a curved base that enhances its sculptural presence.
A curved corridor incorporating a sofa niche on one wall provides access to offices and a meeting room positioned to have the best views of the surrounding countryside.
Internal columns are used to support one end of concrete tables built in each of the workspaces, furnished with classic designs including Marcel Breuer’s Wassily and Cesca chairs.
Large sharing tables allow for communal eating in the kitchenInterior designer Isern Serra founded his self-titled studio in Barcelona in 2008 and works across architecture, interiors and industrial design.
Previous projects including a rose-coloured shop for Barcelona’s Moco Museum that was based on a computer-generated image and a minimalist office for digital artist Andrés Reisinger, which was named small workplace interior of the year at the 2023 Dezeen Awards.
The photography is by Salva López with art direction by Aasheen Mittal.
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Slight variations in tone and texture differentiate surfaces inside the PJ Lobster glasses store in Barcelona, which Spanish interiors studio El Departamento has finished entirely in green.
The shop in the El Born district features walls, floors and stuccoed ceilings all covered in soft, tranquil tones of seafoam green, creating an immersive experience designed to challenge the eye.
The PJ Lobster store in Barcelona is finished entirely in green”The human eye is able to distinguish more different shades of green than any other colour,” El Departamento told Dezeen. “That’s because, deep inside us, we’re still hunters from the prehistoric era.”
“So that’s what we wanted to aim for here, not to hunt anything but to recover the challenging visual exercise of exploring a wide range of greens.”
A glossy counter stands at the centre of the shopThe practice was also influenced by Charles and Ray Eames’s short film Powers of Ten, which explores the scales of the universe.
This informed El Departamento’s study of different textures within the store “from macro to micro”, from the small-grained velvety micro-cement on the floor to the rough textured plaster that was applied to the wall by hand to achieve the right level of thickness.
“We wanted to get to the last step, just before a texture becomes a topography,” the studio said. “It was done manually, carefully and step by step to achieve the perfect state.”
The examination room is located at the rear of the storeStainless steel is another key player in the store, used to create banks of display shelving that frame each pair of glasses, with the soft sheen of the metal creating a striking contrast with the deliberately blobby texture of the walls behind.
Another textural juxtaposition is provided by the large, capsule-like counter at the heart of the store with its high-shine gloss finish and mirrored top.
EBBA Architects transforms former jellied-eel restaurant into eyewear store
Further back in the store is an area dedicated to visual examinations, delineated by a shiny pleather curtain and a softer carpeted floor.
The result, according to El Departamento, is “a vibrant space that swings between the soft and the hard, the rough and the velvety”.
Glasses are displayed on stainless steel shelvesThe studio has been collaborating with PJ Lobster since the eyewear brand was founded in 2018 under the name Project Lobster, helping the company to expand from an online business into real-life stores.
With this latest outpost, El Departamento wanted to encapsulate the evolution of the brand and its products.
The examination room is hidden behind a shiny pleather curtain”We wanted to show that the brand has matured,” the studio said. “We tried to show somehow the organic evolution of the brand by giving this space a more technical and precise atmosphere, where the wide range of textures speaks of the precision levels of the products.”
Other monochrome eyewear stores include Lunettes Selection in Berlin, which is enveloped by mint-green floor-to-ceiling cabinets, and Melbourne’s Vision Studio where cool-toned industrial materials such as aluminium and concrete are paired with grey marble surfaces.
The photography is by José Hevia.
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Local studio EBBA Architects has designed a store for eyewear brand Cubitts that preserves and draws on the original 1930s interior of the traditional F Cooke restaurant on London’s Broadway Market.
The restaurant, which sold cockney dishes such as jellied eel and pie and mash, had been located on the east London street since 1900 but was given a modernist update in the 1930s.
The Cubitts store on Broadway Market is located inside a former restaurantEBBA Architects turned the space into a 145-square-metre Cubitts store but kept almost all the original interiors of the Grade II-listed restaurant, which had been unoccupied since 2019.
F Cooke’s marble tables were given new legs made from stained birch plywood and now hold eyewear display cases in a sunny hue that matches the original wall tiles.
Pale yellow tiles clad the walls”The tables are original but we designed the legs to kind of make it feel like a new feature,” EBBA Architects founder Benni Allan told Dezeen.
“The table has just been scrubbed up,” he said. “Imagine how many nice pies have been eaten on that table.”
“I think what’s nice is that everything below [the tables] has had this quite warm treatment to bring in a nice texture and tone, and then everything above is much lighter.”
Different coloured material samples are displayed on wooden shelvesThe studio also kept the original stained-glass windows and the counter that used to serve food, turning it into a point of sale, while a repair station for glasses fills the window facing the street.
Pale yellow tiles bordered by bands of contrasting blue and turquoise tiles decorate the walls. These are the original interior from 1930 and were cleaned using “loads of elbow grease”, Allan said.
The former food counter was turned into a point of saleIn the main showroom of the two-storey store, the studio also kept the restaurant’s mirrors, only removing one to create a display case and sales point.
“All the additions are kind of appendages or accoutrements on the base of the original structure,” Cubitts founder Tom Broughton told Dezeen.
An orange staircase leads to the lower floorDownstairs, EBBA Architects made more interventions, as the space was dark and hadn’t been furnished to the same level as the main upstairs space.
“It was really quite dark and dingy down there, so the colours from upstairs informed this really bright orange in the staircase,” Allan said.
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The studio used stained plywood to create a sliding wood screen with a square pattern based on the tiles in the main store, as well as creating a bright-coloured staff room with a “secret door”.
It also added tiled floors with a decorative pattern in a colour palette that references that of the restaurant.
“There’s that really beautiful intricate detailing upstairs, so we wanted to sort of mirror that down here with these different patterns in the floor,” Allan said.
EBBA Architects designed a sliding door for the eye-test roomDownstairs also holds the eyewear testing centre, which is located underneath the street above.
Broughton and Allan tried to keep as many of the original details from the restaurant as possible. The tank where the live eels were once kept before being boiled is left standing in an outdoor space downstairs and the restaurant’s sign remains above the front door.
The store has retained its original signage and one of the benchesOne of the benches, on which people used to sit and eat, has been placed outside the store. And the Cooke family behind the restaurant chain – which still has two outposts – has lent Cubitts some of its original pie tins alongside the bowls used to serve jellied eels and a picture of founder Bob Cooke.
The Cubitts Broadway Market store is located in an area that has become increasingly gentrified over the past decade, with many local shops being taken over by chains.
Original stained-glass windows decorate the interiorThough some people have been nostalgic about the time when the store was a pie-and-mash shop, Allan and Broughton said there have also been positive reactions to the refurbishment
“People have actually been really chuffed that it stayed the same,” Allan said.
“Someone could come in here in a decade or two and actually put it back into a pie and mash shop. Even though [the changes] feel purposeful, it’s quite a light touch. If anything, we’ve kind of given it a new lease of life, because it was actually pretty grimy.”
A repair station sits in the windowThis is also the general tactic for Cubitts, Broughton said. When looking for new stores, the brand focuses on finding spaces that have existing interiors, with other outposts set in a 19th-century townhouse in Belgravia and a Victorian arcade in Leeds.
“Ideally, [the store] already has this existing structure and framework that you can clean up and add a bit of product and a few fittings to,” he said.
“And that’s the really nice thing, right? If you can take something that’s already beautiful, give it a new lease of life and make it relevant to someone today, that’s really cool.”
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Cornstarch-foam shelves meet mycelium display plinths in this London store that Nina + Co has designed for bioplastic eyewear brand MONC.
Nestled among a parade of high-end shops in Marylebone, MONC sells glasses made from bio-acetate – an acetate produced completely without fossil fuels – which are packaged using recycled leather cases and compostable cornstarch foam.
The first MONC eyewear location sits along a row of shops in MaryleboneWhen local studio Nina + Co was brought in to design MONC’s debut store, the team was keen to incorporate biomaterials throughout the interior, while also taking the brand’s short-term lease of the retail unit into account.
“Circularity was key,” said the studio. “Almost everything we brought into that building was entirely bio-based or recycled.”
“The furniture is expertly built to last but can be disassembled for re-use, recycling or return to the earth as nourishment.”
The store features a ceiling installation made from cornstarch foamUpon entering the store, visitors find themselves under an undulating ceiling installation crafted from corrugated panels of cornstarch foam.
Thicker blocks of the material were used to create rows of squishy-looking shelves, which can be used for packaging or simply dissolved in water when they eventually start to show signs of wear and tear.
The foam was also used to form small shelvesDisplay plinths made out of mycelium – the vegetative part of a fungus – were dotted across the store to showcase different eyewear models.
In between the shelves, a couple of long mirrors are balanced on hunks of concrete that were salvaged from roadworks nearby.
A recycled PET island sits at the centre of the store beside mycelium display plinthsThe craggy concrete was chosen as a subtle nod to the rugged Dolomite mountains, which can be seen from the Italian town where all MONC eyewear is produced.
Nina + Co worked closely alongside Welsh manufacturers Smile Plastics and London joiner EJ Ryder to design the store’s recycled PET island and bench seat, which are an apricot-orange hue.
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As both furniture pieces were joined with mechanical bolts rather than glues, they can easily be taken apart, flat packed and transported to a different MONC store for reuse.
Walls throughout the interior were finished with VOC-free clay paint while the unit’s existing floor was covered with a water-based sealant.
The plastic was also used to form a bench seat”Previous tenants had ripped up their floor to leave a plywood subfloor, with markings of the adhesive still evident and some paint bucket outlines,” the studio explained.
“After a test patch, we were convinced that a simple water-based sealant would give it a beautiful depth and sheen with the industrial feel of concrete [while being] kinder to the planet and the budget.”
Walls were washed with a calming clay paintMONC is one of five projects shortlisted in the small retail interior category of this year’s Dezeen Awards.
It’s going head-to-head with the Durat showroom by Linda Bergroth, which is decked out in an unusual mix of colours, and Aesop’s Yorkville store by Odami with its oxblood-red balusters.
The photography is by Handover.
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