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      Sella Concept brings retro feel to Sister Jane Townhouse in London

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      Fringed furnishings and velvet walls feature inside the west London headquarters that design studio Sella Concept has created for fashion brand Sister Jane, which includes a showroom, restaurant and roof terrace.Sella Concept said it drew upon “untapped maximalist style” to design Sister Jane Townhouse, which takes over a prominent corner property on Golborne Road in the affluent neighbourhood of Notting Hill.
      Having outgrown their old studio on the nearby Portobello Road, the fashion brand had been keen to move into a larger space that could offer a more immersive retail experience.

      The ground floor of Sister Jane Townhouse has a restaurant called Cha Cha’s
      The three-storey townhouse incorporates a restaurant, a showroom and an office where employees can plan and design future clothing collections. On the roof there is also an outdoor terrace where visitors can gather for drinks.

      When it came to developing the interiors, Sella Concept sought to reflect the retro style of Sister Jane’s billowy blouses and dresses. The studio’s co-founder, Tatjana Von Stein, particularly found herself referencing the aesthetics of the 1970s.

      Furnishings in the restaurant feature fringed detailing
      “I must admit that I am always inspired by the ’70s forms, shapes and use of space,” Von Stein told Dezeen.
      “There is a movement and warmth in its design history that I love to employ with a contemporary twist.”

      A collage wall in the restaurant displays campaign photos by Sister Jane
      On the ground floor of Sister Jane Townhouse is the restaurant, called Cha Cha’s, which serves up a roster of Latin-fusion brunch dishes.
      The space has peach-coloured walls and is dominated by a huge hexagonal, brass-edged bar counter. It’s surrounded by a series of Deja Vu stools by Masquespacio that boast tiers of mauve, cream and beige fringing.

      Sister Jane’s clothing showroom is on the townhouse’s first floor
      Fringing also skirts the burnt-orange seating banquette that winds around a corner of the room, and runs along the edge of the six-sided dining tables. Mustard-yellow lamps with fringed shades have additionally been dotted throughout as decor.
      Cha Cha’s includes a collage wall which will be plastered with different striking images from Sister Jane’s fashion campaigns.
      The wall runs directly beside a brass-tread staircase – the steps had previously been closed in by a partition wall, but Von Stein knocked this down to encourage diners to explore the showroom on the first floor.

      Garments hang from bespoke walnut rails in the showroom
      Upstairs in the showroom, surfaces take on a pinkish hue.
      Some clothes are displayed within a veiled pod that sits at the centre of the room, enclosed by sheer white curtains. Other garments hang from custom-made walnut rails or are presented on mannequins which perch on a curvaceous platform covered in teal-blue carpet.

      An adjacent showroom will display Sister Jane’s Ghospell clothing line
      A short walkway leads through to a room that showcases Sister Jane’s Ghospell line, which offers pared-back clothes with sculptural silhouettes.
      This space has aptly been given a slightly more minimal finish – walls here are either clad in steel or upholstered with buttery yellow velvet, while the changing room is entirely lined with mirrored panels.
      Wooden flooring that runs throughout the rest of the townhouse has also been replaced here by micro cement.

      Walls in this showroom are clad in steel and yellow velvet
      Above the showrooms are the offices for Sister Jane staff, followed by the roof terrace dressed with comfy cushioned benches and green wire-frame chairs.
      Guests can alternatively relax in the secret ground-floor garden room, which is accessed via a door disguised as an antique armoire.

      The customer changing room is entirely lined with mirrored panels
      “We have a true inclination for concept spaces which indulge in all the senses and offer the design challenge to seam together a variety of experiences and brands,” explained Von Stein.
      “But it was tricky – in essence, we had 2-3 clients on one building.”

      An antique armoire hides a door leading to Sister Jane Townhouse’s secret garden room
      Sella Concept was established by Tatjana Von Stein and Gayle Noonan. Previous projects by the studio include Public Hall, a plush co-working space that occupies the former office of the UK secret intelligence service, and Night Tales, a pink-tinged cocktail bar.
      At the end of last year the studio also debuted its first furniture collection, which comprises a series of curvaceous stool seats.
      Photography is by Genevieve Lutkin.

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      O shop in Chengdu is a lifestyle store by day and a bar by night

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      A series of mirrored panels obscure the cocktail bar that lies inside this shop-cum-cafe in Chengdu, China created by design studio Office AIO.The shop, which is unusually called O, was named by its owner and the co-founder of Office AIO, Tim Kwan.

      Taking the first letter from the word “object”, Kwan and the shop owner felt that O was the “perfect shape representing eternity – it has no beginning nor end, no direction nor a right way round”.

      The looping shape of the letter O also nods to the shifting function of the 68-square-metre shop: by day it’s a cafe that sells and showcases a curated selection of lifestyle items and designer furnishings, while at night it turns into a bar.

      Down one side of the shop runs a lengthy sandstone counter where the cafe’s coffee machine is kept. Just in front is a long wooden table where the barista can prepare drink orders.
      The base of the counter has been in-built with a fireplace, which can be switched on as night falls to evoke a cosier mood within the store.

      On the other side of the store is a silver-metal shelf where products are displayed and a row of fold-down seats upholstered in tan leather.

      Chengdu cafe features interiors inspired by Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel

      The rear of the store appears to be lined with mirrored panels, but these can be drawn back to reveal the night-time drinks bar. Liquor bottles line the inner side of the panels.

      Surfaces throughout the rest of shop O have otherwise been kept simple. A patchy band of exposed concrete runs around the lower half of the walls, but off-white paint has been applied to the upper half.
      Interest is added by a handful of potted plants and a sequence of arched screens that have been suspended just beneath the ceiling.

      The last screen has been fitted with an LED strip light that can be adjusted to imbue the space with different colours.
      “[The screens] bring a sense of character to the store without occupying any footprint,” explained the studio.
      “We hope that this space will encourage quality ideas, objects, and people to interact and exchange, and ultimately reach a wholesome experience that is objectively desirable,” it concluded.

      O by Office AIO is longlisted in the small retail interior category of this year’s Dezeen Awards.
      It isn’t the first day-to-night venue that the studio has created – two years ago it completed Bar Lotus in Shanghai, which boasts emerald-coloured walls and rippling rose-gold ceilings. The project won the restaurant and bar interior category of the 2019 Dezeen Awards, when judges commended its mix of contemporary and traditional references.
      Photography is courtesy of WEN Studio.
      Project credits:
      Designed by: Tim Kwan/Office AIOConstruction: Sichuan ChuFeng Architectural Decoration

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      Norm Architects balances “richness and restraint” in refresh of Alsterhaus' menswear department

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      Oak, grey stone and yellow-tinted glass are some of the materials that Norm Architects has used in its minimal makeover of the menswear section of German department store Alsterhaus.Alsterhaus is situated at the heart of Hamburg and first opened its doors in 1912. Spanning 24,000 square metres, the department store offers a mix of fashion, accessories, beauty products and homeware.
      Norm Architects was tasked with refurbishing the long-standing store’s menswear section, which featured lack-lustre white walls and herringbone walls.

      The practice was keen to create a “unity of different universes” across the men’s section that would offer customers a richer experience than shopping online – but also wanted the architecture and material palette of the space to look inherently “pure”.

      The work of American-German architect Mies van der Rohe and Austrian-Czech architect Adolf Loos became a key point of reference.

      OMA wraps glass public walkway around Galleria department store in Gwanggyo

      “A department store is a visually busy place and we realized early in the process that the design needed to be pared down and clear conceptually – ruling out strong patterns and ornamentation,” said Sofie Thorning, associate partner at Norm Architects.
      “We looked to Mies van der Rohe and Adolf Loos for inspiration on natural materials with inherent characteristics that form textures and colours while evoking sensations of warmth, cold balancing feelings of soft and hard to the touch,” she told Dezeen.

      The menswear section is now orientated around a colonnade comprising a sequence of oakwood frames.
      It leads off to various brand concessions that are each fronted by gunmetal signs denoting their name.

      While some areas boast plush carpeting, a majority of the floor has been clad with pale-grey Ceppo di Gre stone tiles.
      “This balance between richness and restraint affords the user a unique and engaging shopping experience, relying on a considered quality of materiality and space,” added Thorning.

      Garments hang from rectangular black-metal frames that descend from the ceiling, while smaller accessories like shoes or lifestyle items are presented on bespoke steel or dark-wood shelving units.
      Pops of colour are offered by yellow-tinted glass clothing stands and blocky display plinths crafted from milky-green natural stone.

      Norm Architects has been established since 2008 and was founded by Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen and Kasper Rønn Von Lotzbeck. Its most recent projects include the creation of a Copenhagen hotel that doubles as a showroom and the refurbishment of a pair of Tokyo apartments.
      The practice also is longlisted in the interior designer of the year category in this year’s Dezeen Awards.
      Photography is by Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen of Norm Architects.

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      Clothing racks move along wheeled tracks in Los Angeles athletic store Reigning Champ

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      Vancouver studio Peter Cardew has designed this store in Los Angeles for an athletic wear clothing company to allude to the aesthetic of a gym.The Reigning Champ store at 115 South La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles features walls covered in white glazed tiles, concrete floors and wooden clothing rails – simple materials chosen by Peter Cardew to follow the style of a gymnasium.

      “In order to connect the customer with the product the design of the Los Angeles store obliquely alludes to the domain of a gym, providing an harmonious setting appropriate for the display of athletic clothing,” the studio explained.

      “The choice of materials reinforces the relationship to sporting activity with the use of functional and utilitarian white glazed tile as wall and bench surfaces, polished concrete floors, and display fixtures fabricated using western hemlock, a plentiful economic wood with a straight grain efficiency,” it added.
      “All culminating to convey a functional place of activity akin to any effective sporting milieu.”

      Piles of folded clothes are stored in the base of the wooden clothing racks that are suspended on rails from the ceiling.
      The wooden structures, which are braced with metalwork, have wheels fitted the top of the wooden structures so they can be easily moved around the store.

      “In keeping with this active rather than passive environment the display fixtures are infinitely mobile being suspended from concrete beams attached to wheeled tracks which easily allows for changing seasonal configurations,” the studio added.

      Commune designs Serra marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles to be airy and luxurious

      “In addition, to facilitate yet more changes these fixtures are simply bolted together so that they can be removed for special events, celebrations, or exhibitions.”

      Photograph by Andrew Latreille
      The materiality continues into the changing rooms, whose doors feature an opening with a built-in wooden shelf so customers can swap clothes with Reigning Champ salespeople.
      Reigning Champ spans the ground floor of its building with two large windows offering views and natural light into the space.

      The project, which is longlisted in the large retail interior category of Dezeen Awards 2020, marks the first in the US for the Canadian clothing brand. It is its fifth in total following two in Vancouver and two in Toronto.
      Other shops recently completed in Los Angeles include a marijuana dispensary Commune designed to be airy and luxurious, and a dramatically narrow, runway-like space Bernard Dubois designed as the first store for sneaker brand APL.
      Photography is by Mike Kelly, unless stated otherwise.

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      OMA designs glass volume to top Tiffany & Co's New York flagship store

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      OMA New York, led by Shohei Shigematsu, has unveiled its design for a glass addition to top the historic Tiffany & Co store on Fifth Avenue in New York City.The project involves the preservation of the jewellery brand’s 80-year old flagship location, a renovation of its ground floor and the construction of a rectangular glass volume that will span three storeys, adding space for hosting exhibitions and events.
      Built in 1940 by Cross & Cross, the existing limestone facade of the Tiffany & Co building is marked by its grid of windows and scalloped edges. In 1980 an upper volume was added to the building to house offices, which will be demolished and replaced by the new glass structure as part of this latest renovation by OMA.

      “Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue Flagship is more than a retail space, it is a destination with a public dimension,” said OMA Partner Shohei Shigematsu. “The new addition is informed by programmatic needs of the evolving brand – a gathering place that acts as a contemporary counterpart to the iconic ground level space and its activities.”

      “The floating volume over an existing terrace provides a clear visual cue to a vertical journey of diverse experiences throughout the building,” he added.
      OMA’s design plans to form the new volume using two stacked glass structures. The lower one will comprise a recessed box covered with glass windows, while the upper portion will be wrapped with slumped glass walls modelled after the building’s decorative parapet.

      OMA adds iridescent glass escalator to New York’s Saks Fifth Avenue

      The ridged glass requires minimal vertical support and has a reflective surface designed for viewing the city from the interiors while offering privacy looking in from the exterior.
      An outdoor patio for hosting events surrounds the lower, two-storey volume. The existing space is furnished with tables and plants that overlook Fifth Avenue and on to Central Park. Its double height walls are wrapped with smooth glass panes and vertical silver frames to tie the two volumes together.
      “The two spaces of the upper volume that make up the new addition is a moment of clear but complementary contrast to the original flagship,” the studio added. “It is a symbolic ending to the building that reflects an evolved luxury experience that is more a journey than a destination.”

      The project is currently under construction and is expected to complete in Spring 2022.
      Shigematsu leads OMA New York with fellow partner Jason Long. The outpost is intended to function independently from the studio’s international offices, including Rotterdam, Beijing, Hong Kong, Doha and Australia, as part of an initiative of founder Rem Koolhaas.
      Last year the studio installed a multicoloured escalator inside the renovated Saks Fifth Avenue department store.
      Other recent projects by the New York office include a plan for the 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington DC and a series of galleries inside Gio Ponti’s Denver Art Museum.

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      Virgil Abloh and AMO design flexible flagship Off-White store in Miami that “can host a runway show”

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      Fashion designer Virgil Abloh and AMO director Samir Bantal have designed the Off-White flagship store in Miami Design District to be a fulfilment centre and a multipurpose events space. Abloh, who owns the brand Off-White, and Bantal, director of architecture firm OMA’s research arm AMO, designed the store to rethink how physical shops should operate amid the growing popularity of digital shopping.

      “We’re niche entities, AMO, Off-White, Samir and myself, so we’re able to sort of wear our heart on our sleeve or our brain on our sleeve,” Abloh told Dezeen. “The first slide that Samir sent for the development was like, is shopping relevant?”

      “If we’re able to kind of fulfil our needs by ordering a lot of things online, what’s the role of a physical store?,” Bantal added.

      The idea is that the store is flexible, according to Abloh, who citied the annual Art Basel and Design Miami events that take place in Miami as examples of when it could be used to host a variety of activities, like art and music events, and talks.
      “There might be 1,000 people, you know, in key moments of that year where the shop can host a runway show, it can host a talk, it can host a cafe,” Abloh said.
      “It’ll be a cafe that extends out into the street, it’ll be what the environment needs it to be rather than the betting on, hey, this square footage needs to be used for retail 24 seven,” he added.
      “Who knows, by the time it opens I might turn it into like an Uber delivery of Off-White – that’s the freedom and the fun.”

      In response, the store is stripped back to only provide storage space for apparel on sale so it could easily be used for a variety of activities and cultural events.
      “We played with the idea of translating the store into a fulfilment center,” Bantal explained. “Fulfillment of not only the monetary transaction you do by buying a product, but also fulfilment in terms of like the engagement you have with a brand, or the aura of a brand.”
      “This, of course, being in Miami Design District led to the idea of creating a space that is adjustable and transformable over time,” Bantal continued. “We should be able to kind of compress the retail parts to almost like a storage element in the store, and open the store to a kind of variety of cultural events.”

      Located at 127 NE 41 Street, the two-storey store is fronted with an opaque polycarbonate wall on the ground floor that can be pushed back, squeezing the storage of the apparel to the rear and opening the front to the street.
      “You almost push everything that is retail and compress it in the space behind and then of course, ultimately it ends up in storage,” said Bantal. “While the space in front of that facade is completely open and free and can be used for any function.”
      Above the moveable wall is the word Shop with a red cross in front – a tongue-in-cheek nod to the concept behind the project.
      “This is the first Off White store to have a facade you know, that street level so the expression, the signage, you know, as the words Shop is a shop, but then has like, an X through the middle, and it’s very, like monolithic,” said Abloh. “The face of the concept is expressed on the facade.”

      Inside, the team aimed to continue to the theme of the fulfilment centre through a stripped-back industrial aesthetic – including floors rendered in lightly stained concrete, walls lined in corrugated metal and mesh ceiling panels.
      Off-White apparel will be displayed on either stainless steel shelving or black marquina and white Carrara marble rails. All the furniture is placed on wheels or is collapsible so it can be moved about to accommodate events.
      The pared-back style acts as a backdrop to a series of artworks that will be installed in the store and the bold electric blue stair that leads to the first floor. On this level, the brand intends to host more intimate events like dinner parties.

      Abloh, who is also the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collection, founded his Off-White brand as a ready-to-wear streetwear label in 2012. He previously teamed up with Bantal to design Figures of Speech, a retrospective exhibition of his career at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA).
      The store joins a number of fashion flagships in Miami Design District, which Craig Robins transformed from a formerly neglected area into the hub for design boutiques, luxury fashion brands and art galleries.
      Others include Joseph, which London firm Sybarite design with a spiral black staircase, Christian Louboutin, which is covered in tree bark, Dior, which has a boutique sheathed in curved white concrete panels, and Tom Ford, which is housed in a pleated concrete shop designed by ArandaLasch.

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      Folding polycarbonate wall reveals earthy interiors of São Paulo wellness space Dois Trópicos

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      Brazilian studio MNMA has designed a spiral concrete stair and folding polycarbonate doors in this botanical store, yoga classroom and restaurant in São Paulo.Dois Trópicos has a calming earthy palette featuring local materials and crafts that MNMA chose to complement the functions of the wellness hub.

      “The concept of the project is a hybrid space, there is no determination or boundaries. We want a space that integrates gastronomy, the practice of yoga and botany,” MNMA explained. “Where people can feel in every way the importance of spending time in the chaotic city of Sao Paulo to take care of themselves, slowly and with pleasure.”

      “A commercial space that creates a homelike hosting experience, using nostalgia and natural matter, crafted by artisan hands that desire to achieve not perfection but real environments,” it added.

      Translucent polycarbonate doors set in aluminium frames front the exterior to contrast the earthy aesthetic, and allow natural light and cross-ventilation.
      “By contrast, the facade is technological, drafted and executed with precision, thought to allow sun and wind in, to avoid artificial air conditioning systems,” the studio explained.

      “The general purpose is to create a contemporary element that, when opened, would bring back some lost time of ancient forms of construction, a slow passing of time, an earthy place… it feels like ‘home’.” the studio continued.

      Slender terracotta-coloured bricks made by local craftsmen cover the flooring and form structures for washbasins, while textured soil-based render is applied by hand to the walls throughout.

      “We don’t use conventional paint to colour the walls, we literally use earth (like clay) to give this colour, the walls and ceilings are natural earth colours, we don’t use anything chemical,” MNMA said.

      Cracked floors and weathered wood feature in minimal São Paulo shoe store

      “The soil reacts allegorically to the sunlight movement along the day, turning walls, ceilings and the floor not into limits or boundaries, but into canvases for the light to express itself gradually in various forms,” it added. “As it is possible to enjoy comfortably great and authentic food, full of flavours.”

      A spiral staircase at the entrance has a rendered banister and concrete treads with a marked underside that was built using leftover wood on the construction site. It leads up to an open studio space for yoga and massages.
      “The shape was made with materials reused from demolition,” it explained. “The experience was more important than the performance of the technique, so the drawings that are usually super strict gave voice to the empiricism of the local artisans workers,” the studio added.

      A circular door punctured in the rear wall to provides access to stairs that lead down to a restaurant on the lower level. Granite gravel is laid the floor of the outdoor areas to allow for drainage of water. A glazed roof partially covers the restaurant and bar – which is also made from the pale bricks.
      Founded by André Pepato and Mariana Schmidt, MNMA has used a similarly pared-back aesthetic for a number of spaces in São Paulo. They include a retail space for Brazilian women’s clothing store Egrey and a store for shoe company Selo.
      Photography is by Andre Klotz.

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      Black staircase twists up Joseph store in Miami Design District

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      London studio Sybarite has designed a store for fashion label Joseph in the Miami Design District to include round balconies, curved railings spiral stairs as a reference to the city’s seaside architecture. A black metal corkscrew staircase is among the details that takes cues from Miami’s seaside architecture dating back to the 1940s and 50s.

      Featuring contrasting white polished-marble stair treads, it twists through a circular opening to lead from womenswear on the ground floor to menswear and accessories on the first floor.

      Smoked-black glass wraps around the opening with a curved black balustrade adding to the decorative motifs. Sybarite said other details include the irregular wall cutouts that form windows.

      Marking the fashion label’s largest store to date, the 243-square-metre Miami Design District space is among a number the British studio has designed for the fashion label.
      In each, Sybarite follows the theme of opposites common in Joseph apparel with contrasting tones of black and white, and harsh and soft materials.

      “Our designs for Joseph are based on opposites and the unexpected to provide a complete brand experience for the customer,” said Sybarite co-founder Simon Mitchell.
      White-painted walls and concrete floors are a backdrop to black metalwork fitted with LED lighting that forms frames around clothing rails and extends up in an angular form to meet the ceiling.

      Plinths for bags and shoes made from oriented-strand board (OSB), brass and Corian are arranged in groups on an area of the ground floor marked by a brass grid embedded in the concrete floor.

      Tree bark covers Christian Louboutin boutique in Miami Design District

      A pop of colour is provided by the till desk made of Italian green marble, following on from a recurring concept in Jospeph stores in which a different marble from around the world is used.

      Sybarite has also used geometric shapes of softer carpeting, as and rich shearlings and velvet upholstery in the changing rooms, to add a more cosy elements.

      The studio completed the Joseph store in 2018 making the latest addition to the Miami Design District, which property developer Craig Robins transformed from a formerly neglected area into the hub for design boutiques, luxury fashion brands and art galleries.

      Other fashion brands that have opened up architecturally interesting shops in the area include Christian Louboutin, which has a flagship store covered in tree bark, Dior, which has a boutique sheathed in curved white concrete panels, and Tom Ford, which is housed in a pleated concrete shop designed by ArandaLasch.
      Founded in 2002, Sybarite has completed a number of retail and hospitality interiors, including shops for fashion houses Alberta Ferretti and Marni.

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