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    Issey Miyake store in Osaka is splashed with water-themed details

    Seating that resembles bars of soap and pipe-like clothing rails appear inside this Issey Miyake store in Osaka’s Minamisemba neighbourhood, which was designed by Shingo Noma.The store, monikered Issey Miyake Semba, is shortlisted in the large retail interior category of the 2020 Dezeen Awards.
    Japanese designer Shingo Noma created the interiors to reference Osaka’s long history of maritime trade – the city’s port has been in operation since before the year 300 AD.

    The store’s exterior features a sculpture that looks like a tap

    “Linking the city of water, Osaka, with the continuous circulation of interesting ideas that bubble up from making things at Issey Miyake to the image of the store, I arrived at the design concept of a ‘fount of creativity’,” explained Noma, who is also art director of the gallery inside Issey Miyake’s Kyoto branch.
    “If you turn on the faucet, there will always be a gushing flow of interesting ideas.”
    Water-inspired decor details have therefore been introduced at every point in the store. A four-pronged silver sculpture that looks like the handle of a traditional tap has been mounted on the facade, just above the brand’s logo.

    Concrete covers most of the store’s interior
    Inside, on the store’s ground floor, garments are hung from bending metal rails that have been shaped to mimic water pipes.
    The same pipe-like tubing supports the display tables, which all feature white, glossy countertops – almost reminiscent of the inner lining of bathtubs or sinks.

    Naoto Fukasawa inserts Issey Miyake store into 132-year-old Kyoto townhouse

    Guests can relax on the white, blue and grey seating poufs that have been dotted across the room. Each one has a wide, rounded form and a raised lip running around its outer edge, emulating the shape of a bar of soap.

    The clothes rails and legs of the display tables are meant to look like water pipes
    The same fixtures can be seen down in the store’s basement, which also includes an exhibition space. At the time of opening, it showed a series of works by Japanese illustrator Seitaro Kuroda, including his various depictions of boats and ships.
    Surfaces throughout the store, including the floors, have been washed over with concrete. The ceiling and its network of exposed service ducts have been rendered in white.

    An exhibition area can be found in the store’s basement
    Issey Miyake Semba will go head-to-head against five other retail spaces in this year’s Dezeen Awards. Amongst them is high-end fashion store The Webster, which occupies a rotund, pink-concrete building in Los Angeles designed by architect David Adjaye.
    Also on the shortlist is the streetwear brand Supreme’s San Francisco store, where studio Brinkworth has installed a huge skateboarding bowl.
    Photography is by Masaya Yoshimura and Copist.

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    Recycled drink cans decorate exterior of Daily Paper's first US store

    Over 13,000 flattened aluminium cans decorate the facade of Dutch fashion label Daily Paper’s inaugural shop in the US, which has opened in Manhattan, New York. The two-storey Daily Paper store spans 1,140 square feet (106 square metres) and occupies a prominent corner building in Manhattan’s Lower Eastside. Up until now, the brand has exclusively
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    Freitag's Sweat-Yourself-Shop is a tiny factory for making bags

    Swiss brand Freitag has created a shop in Zurich, which is a “micro-factory” where customers can help make their own bag out of recycled tarpaulins.Named Sweat-Yourself-Shop, the interactive retail space on Grüngasse was designed by Freitag to take their existing customisation options one step further.

    Freitag bags are made of recycled truck tarpaulins
    The 80-square-metre retail space was originally a standard shop for the brand but has been given a factory-style makeover.
    “We were looking for a unique pilot retail experience to reduce used truck tarp leftovers from our factory,” explained Freitag.
    “With the new shop, customers can get further involved by assembling their bag to their own taste and getting involved in the final production steps,” added the brand.
    “From now on, Freitag is transferring the final stages of production and the entire responsibility for the bag’s design to future owners, in our newly converted micro-factory.”

    Customers can operate a conveyor belt of material

    Founded in 1993 by graphic designers Markus and Daniel Freitag, Freitag specialises in practical bags made out of recycled tarpaulins.
    Used tarpaulin bought from trucking companies in Europe are cleaned, cut up and fashioned into bags. The material, polyester fabric coated with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), makes for durable and waterproof accessories.

    The shop is set up as a “micro-factory” for bags
    At Sweat-Yourself-Shop, customers can make their own shopper-style bag.
    The interiors of the micro-factory are designed to look “functional and industrial”, with grey walls and floors. Freitag painted all the machinery in Colour Index industrial green, the brand’s signature shade.

    The shopper bag is fully customisable
    A rainbow of tarpaulin panels are clipped to hangers dangling from a looped conveyor belt that runs along the shop’s ceiling.
    Customers can press a button to power the conveyor belt, bringing more colour choices out from behind windows of frosted glass.

    Customers can watch their bag being stitched
    Workshop stations allow them to pick out colours for the main bag and the outer pocket and watch them be cut and stitched together.

    Miniwiz creates pop-up store where rubbish is exchanged for recycled products

    “The sheer amount of colour choices for tarp pieces that go into the F718 BUH shopper will probably have our part-time bag makers in the new Sweat-Yourself-Shop perspiring more heavily than the production work itself,” joked the brand.

    The whole process is visible through big display windows
    Large windows frame the shop so that passersby can also watch the process from the street.
    Sweat-Yourself-Shop is shortlisted for Dezeen Awards 2020 in the small retail interior category, alongside projects including a tiny bakery in Japan and beauty brand Glossier’s Seattle shop that’s covered in moss.

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  • Rammed-earth counter anchors Flamingo Estate pop-up in Los Angeles

    Vibrant green walls surround a chunky rammed-earth counter in this garden-themed pop-up shop in LA that creatives Alex Reed and Dutra Brown have designed for lifestyle brand Flamingo Estate.Flamingo Estate’s Harvest Shop pop-up takes over a retail unit in Platform, a high-end shopping centre in LA’s Culver City area.
    The shop offers an array of the brand’s holistic products for the body and home, along with its range of pantry foods, which includes items such as extra-virgin olive oil, honey and dark chocolate.
    Many products are made with ingredients grown on the grounds of Flamingo Estate, which is tucked away in the hills of the nearby Eagle Rock neighbourhood. Its sprawling garden is host to 150 different species of flowering plants and shrubs, as well as a fruit orchard, vegetable beds and a hive of bees.

    A rammed-earth counter sits at the centre of Harvest Shop

    This lush landscape became a key point of reference for the pop-up’s designers, locally-based creatives Alex Reed and Dutra Brown.
    Together they sought to fashion a space that resembled “a small, secret corner of the estate itself…as if it was lifted from the earth and brought to the store”.

    An abstract sculpture perches on one end of the counter
    At the centre of the shop is a monolithic counter crafted from rammed earth. The bottom of the counter is inset with different-coloured fragments of stone, while the top features a cluster of white-tile blocks and platforms on which products are presented.
    To ensure the tiles could be used again post pop-up, a simple mixture of mud and earth was used as grout.
    A corner of the counter is dominated by an amorphous sculpture that Reed and Brown created using scagliola – a type of plaster typically made from gypsum, glue and pigments.

    A mural depicting trees and rolling hills acts as a backdrop to the counter
    “For Flamingo Estate’s first physical location, we looked to the company’s ‘hands-in-the dirt’ ideals of what is luxurious and covetable today,” the pair said.
    “We’ve utilized our respective expertise to design and build a project centred around materiality – this collage of organic material and sculptural form, together with provenance and fantasy, celebrates what we love about Flamingo Estate.”

    Frida Escobedo segments Aesop Park Slope with rammed-earth brickwork

    The garden theme continues onto Harvest Shop’s walls, where LA-based artist Abel Macias has painted a rich, green mural.
    “Richard [Christiansen, owner of Flamingo Estate] and I talked about a concept based around Snow White, the enchanted little forest that she lives in that’s sort of dark but very magical and green in a way,” explained Macias.
    “We came up with this landscape that’s rolling hills and swirly trees, keeping everything in the tonal green world so that it feels verdant and very lush [in the store].”
    Emerald-coloured paint covers a wall on the opposite side of the shop, which is mounted with rows of glass jars filled with various natural ingredients.

    Another wall is mounted with rows of glass jars
    Flamingo Estate is overseen by creative director Richard Christiansen. Beyond the estate’s garden lies a Spanish colonial-style house that, since the beginning of 2020, has operated as a chic retreat for creative people in Los Angeles.
    Its Harvest Shop pop-up isn’t the only retail project to have made use of rammed earth. Last year, Mexican architect Frida Escobedo applied rammed-earth bricks to the walls of an Aesop store in Brooklyn, New York, to emulate the facade of the brownstone townhouses seen around the area.
    Photography is by Adrian Gaut.

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  • Fashion meets art inside Dries Van Noten's inaugural US store

    Luxury fashion label Dries Van Noten has opened its first US store in Los Angeles, which boasts interiors filled with artworks from creatives across the globe.Dries Van Noten’s LA store takes over two buildings that sit on a huge parking lot along La Cienega Boulevard. The first building is a two-floor property that has been dubbed Big House, the second, called Little House, is a 1950s-era bungalow completely shrouded by ivy.
    Together the buildings measure 8,500 square feet (790 square meters), making this the Belgian fashion brand’s largest retail space to date.

    Dries Van Noten’s LA store is split into Big House and Little House

    Clothing collections are presented inside Big House, with womenswear on the ground floor and menswear up on the first floor.
    The brand’s in-house design team took charge of the interiors – founder Dries van Noten, who was stuck outside the US due to coronavirus travel restrictions, would “visit” the space every evening via FaceTime calls with staff members.
    Simple white-painted walls and concrete flooring appears throughout. A few elements in the store, like the accessory display plinths and chesterfield-style sofas, are a sunny shade of yellow – a colour deemed synonymous with Dries Van Noten’s brand identity.

    Big House displays the brand’s fashion collections
    Decor is provided by striking artworks from a roster of local and international creatives. Some pieces, such as the mixed-media collages by LA-based artist Jan Gatewood, have been executed directly on the store’s walls as murals.
    “I didn’t want to have that gallery feeling where everything is mercantile…it’s more like graffiti,” Van Noten explained.

    Artwork and musical instruments have been dotted throughout
    “While showcasing the Dries Van Noten collections this place will be a haven for creative encounters and gathering experiences that embraces the creative pulse of Los Angeles and its creative and fashion community” added the brand explained in a statement.
    “These experiences can be as light-hearted as they can be profound, yet they will always be welcoming to all and informal.”
    Sculptural furnishings by Rotterdam-based designer Johan Viladrich are also on display, as well as busts of tattooed human heads by Czech artist Richard Stipl.

    Big House includes an archive room that presents pieces from old Dries Van Noten collections. Photo by Jeff Forney
    Big House additionally includes archive rooms which are haphazardly plastered with old catwalk and campaign imagery of Dries Van Noten designs.
    Here customers are able to purchase pieces from past collections – some of which date back to the 1990s – and once health and safety restrictions have been lifted post-pandemic, re-sell garments from the brand that they no longer want.
    “It’s not only about sustainability reasons, but it’s the whole idea that a beautiful garment stays beautiful even if other people have been wearing it – and I like the idea that you have new clothes and old clothes all together in the same store,” added Van Noten.

    Foliage-filled plant beds line the outside of the store. Photo by Gareth Kantner
    To access Little House, shoppers must walk past a series of plant beds overspilling with tropical foliage, which were included in homage to Van Noten’s passion for gardening and the brand’s frequent use of botanical prints.
    The bungalow acts as an exhibition space which, going forward, will showcase different furniture, textiles, ceramics and photography from both established and emerging creatives.
    Currently on display is a collection of porcelain tableware created by Van Noten’s longtime friend, fashion designer Ann Demeulemeester, and Belgian brand Serax.

    Dries Van Noten pays homage to Verner Panton with colourful SS19 collection

    The brand also hopes that, in time, the parking lot can host large-scale events, and has plans to transform it into everything from a drive-in cinema to a food-tasting space.

    Little House will serve as an exhibition space. Photo by Jeff Forney
    Dries Van Noten’s Los Angeles store joins branches in Tokyo, Osaka, Singapore, Paris and a flagship in Antwerp – but the brand’s founder already has his sights set on opening the doors to a store over on the east coast of the US.
    “Of course the space is very important, it really has to be the right building – the moment we find that, we’ll be in New York.”
    Photography is by Jim Mangan unless stated otherwise.

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  • Case-Real contrasts plaster and steel inside Aesop store in Shinjuku

    Coarse plaster walls offset glinting stainless-steel display fixtures in this restrained store that architecture studio Case-Real has designed for Aesop in Shinjuku, Tokyo.The Aesop store occupies a glass-fronted retail unit in Shinjuku, a buzzing, tourist-heavy ward of Tokyo populated with bars, eateries and neon-lit billboards.

    Case-Real used just two materials to create the store’s simple interior
    When it came to designing the store’s interiors, Case-Real wanted to capture both what it describes as a sense of “artificial chaos” that permeates Shinjuku and the natural quality of Aesop’s skincare products.

    The locally based studio decided to use two contrasting materials that it felt reflected the dichotomy of natural and artificial – plaster and steel.

    Plaster covers the store’s walls, while steel has been used for display fixtures
    All of the store’s gently curving walls are coated with coarse beige plaster, which leaves behind a textured surface finish.
    The same plaster has been applied to a section of the store’s facade, creating a simple backdrop for Aesop’s logo.

    Aesop’s creative director selects significant moments from the brand’s first book

    Paint in the same beige hue has been washed across the ceiling and floor.

    A counter where customers can test products is also made from steel
    Shiny stainless steel has then been used to craft a series of lengthy display shelves that bend in line with the walls and several low-lying cabinets where extra stock can be hidden away, complete with steel handles.
    The metal has additionally been used to make the store’s service desk, as well as a long counter inbuilt with round washbasins where customers are invited to test out products or observe demonstrations from staff.
    A border of steel has also been created around the entrance doorway.

    Plaster gives the walls a rough surface finish
    The only other feature that Case-Real has incorporated in the store is a chunky plaster bench seat supported by cylindrical steel legs.
    It has been placed directly in front of a window that looks onto the busy streets of Shinjuku, allowing customers to quietly sit and people-watch.

    Plaster also appears on the store’s facade
    Case-Real was established in the year 2000 and is led by designer Koichi Futatsumata. Four years ago, the studio designed the interiors of another Aesop store in the Japanese city of Sapporo, covering its walls with locally-sourced volcanic stone.
    The studio’s Aesop Shinjuku store is shortlisted in the small retail interior category of this year’s Dezeen Awards. It will compete against projects such as the Pinocchio, a tiny 4.5-metre-wide bakery in Yokohama, and the Glossier pop-up in Seattle, where products are displayed amongst grassy mounds covered in wildflowers.
    Photography is by Daisuke Shima.
    Project credits:
    Design: Koichi Futatusmata, Yuki Onita (Case-Real)Construction: &SLighting plan: BRANCH lighting design (Tatsuki Nakamura)

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  • Atelier L2 creates modular wooden interiors for Ateliers des Capucins

    Rennes studio Atelier L2 has installed 20 wooden boxes as modular units for shops, exhibitions and hospitality businesses inside Ateliers des Capucins, a covered square in a 19th-century arsenal in Brest, France.The Ateliers des Capucins has been shortlisted for a Dezeen Awards 2020 in the large workspace interior category.
    The studio’s brief was to design a number of shells in order to create an interior street with two floors inside the historical arsenal building, covering 5,000 square metres.

    Top: the project is located inside the 10,000 square-metres former arsenal. Above: Units with gabled roofs are slotted into the ceiling
    Atelier L2 used laminated veneer lumber (LVL) for the shells, which were designed to stand out against the metal structure and pitched glass roof of the 10,000 square-metres Ateliers des Capucins.

    Each wooden shell measures between 150 and 400 square metres, with some of the concept stores in the space using more than one.

    Some facades are as tall as 13 metres
    “In this way, the client would be able to find buyers who could convert each ‘box’ to complete the cultural and service offer,” Atelier L2 co-founder Pierre Lelièvre told Dezeen.
    The boxes are a permanent fixture of the Ateliers des Capucins – which functions as a large, covered market space – and can’t be moved.
    “Even though their appearance suggests it, the ‘boxes’ are absolutely fixed and cannot be moved under any circumstances,” Lelièvre said.
    “Their technical and structural complexity does not allow such flexibility. They are indeed equipped with all the necessary networks to host any kind of activity: exhibitions, restaurants, offices, breweries, co-working.”

    Laminated veneer lumber was used for the facades and floors
    The studio chose to use LVL made of spruce veneers for the structure of the facades and the floors, which span 10 to 14 metres, as it allowed them to create the units with as little impact on the existing building as possible.

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    “The entire design of the project was thought out with respect for natural resources,” Lelièvre explained.
    “The facing of the facades is made of spruce, the internal bracing uses gypsum boards and the insulation is made of wood wool. The floor boxes are ballasted with aggregates.”

    The wood stands out against the 19th-century building
    Windows were inserted into the facades of the wooden shells, to make them resemble many smaller houses inside the bigger building.
    The ceiling height of the huge hall space means some of the boxes have facades that reach as high as 13 metres, and gabled roofs that have been slotted into the ceiling.

    The units are used for retail spaces, offices and more
    “The use of wood was a way for us to stand out against the existing building, which is entirely made of stone and metal, while also giving an ephemeral side to our layout,” Lelièvre said.
    “We wanted to give the feeling that our project was simply set down in this historical and remarkable setting.”
    Atelier L2 is based in Rennes and was founded by Julie de Legge and Pierre Lelièvre.
    Also on the shortlist for the large workspace interior category are the monochrome interiors for KCC Office in a former factory, and The Audo hotel in Copenhagen that doubles as a showroom.

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  • Mythology crafts warm plywood interiors for Shen beauty store in Brooklyn

    Plywood covers almost every surface in this store that creative studio Mythology has designed for beauty retailer Shen in Brooklyn, New York.Shen’s new retail space is nestled in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighbourhood and measures 1,550 square metres.
    The former store of the beauty retailer – which is known for selling a roster of independent makeup and skincare brands – had been located in the nearby area of Carroll Gardens and featured a mix of white and lavender-pink walls.

    The interior of Shen’s store is lined with plywood
    Manhattan-based Mythology has fashioned a warmer fit-out for this location, opting to line every surface in Baltic birch plywood.

    “We challenged ourselves to use a singular material because we wanted to juxtapose a humble utilitarian material like plywood with the high-end products featured in Shen’s product offering,” Ted Galperin, a partner and director of retail at Mythology, told Dezeen.
    “Using both the face and end-grain of the plywood allowed us to create a multitude of custom applications, and add visual variety to the space.”

    Colour is provided by hand-drawn wall murals
    Inside, Shen has been loosely divided into three sections. The first section is dedicated to customer browsing and lies towards the left of the store.
    Plywood has been used here to make a sequence of storage units that fan outwards from the wall, each one complete with vanity mirror and shelving where products are openly displayed. Names of different brands that are on offer have been carved into plywood panels set directly above the units.

    Plywood counters displaying products slope out from the walls
    The second section comprises a couple of triangular plywood islands in the middle of the store, where Shen staff can spotlight certain products and talk through them in detail with customers or demonstrate how they’re used.
    On the right-hand side of the store is the third section, which is used for services like makeup tutorials. There’s also an angled plywood counter here that showcases candles and scents for the home, running beneath a three-dimensional plywood sign of Shen’s company logo.

    The store includes an area for makeup tutorials
    Excluding a handful of restored 1950s stools from Thonet, furnishings and decorative elements in the store have been kept to a minimum.
    A splash of colour is added by a bespoke mural created by New York artist Petra Börner, which features a black-line illustration of a person’s face surrounded by wobbly blotches of green and turquoise paint.

    Beauty treatment rooms lie towards the rear of the store
    Another mural by Börner using pink and orange tones appears in the treatment area at the rear of the store, where customers can come for treatments like facials, waxing, and microblading.
    Walls here have also been painted a pinkish hue, but exposed plywood can still be seen on the floor, built-in sofas and beauticians’ cupboards.

    Walls in the treatment rooms have been painted pink
    Mythology isn’t the only design studio that has created a striking retail interior using just one material.
    Brooks + Scarpa lined the walls of an Aesop shop in downtown Los Angeles with cardboard fabric rolls salvaged from local fashion houses and costume shops, while Valerio Olgiati blanketed a Celine store in Miami in blue-tinged marble.
    An Ace & Tate store in Antwerp is also lined exclusively in white terrazzo tiles inlaid with red and blue aggregate.
    Photography is by Brooke Holm.

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