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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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  • Minimal interiors of Bodice store in New Delhi champions slow fashion

    Bodice founder Ruchika Sachdeva has designed the pared-back interiors of the womenswear brand’s store in New Delhi to counter the “more, new and now” culture of fast fashion.Bodice’s flagship is located in New Delhi’s affluent Vasant Kunj neighbourhood, occupying a building on the same site as the brand’s design studio.
    Sachdeva took on the task of designing the interiors of the store herself, setting out to create a simple, thoughtful space that would encourage customers to “think more consciously about what they’re buying and why”.

    Top image: the exterior of Bodice’s New Delhi flagship. Above: floor-to-ceiling windows flood the store with natural light
    “I feel there is a need to question the way we consume clothes,” Sachdeva told Dezeen. “The fast-paced, retail-driven space like a market or a mall does the opposite by encouraging customers to buy quantity instead of quality.”

    “The culture there makes it alright to buy more and dispose quickly whereas our philosophy at Bodice is a little different,” continued Sachdeva, who is a judge for Dezeen Awards 2020. “We focus on longevity and for us, the essence of the product is a lot more important than the number of collections.”
    “We are not really in the favour of feeding the ‘more and new and now’ culture, so I felt that the store should reflect that.”

    Bamboo blinds partially cover the windows
    Fixtures and furnishings throughout the open-plan store are therefore few and far between – those that do appear have been made from naturally sourced materials.
    This sustainable ethos is also applied to Bodice’s clothing, which is designed to be a more minimal, practical alternative to garments currently offered to women in India.
    Pieces are fabricated from non-synthetic textiles like wool or silk and then dyed with natural pigments such as those sourced from indigo plants.

    Furniture inside the store has been kept to a minimum
    The blinds in the store that partially shroud the floor-to-ceiling windows are made from bamboo. The triangular-frame rails where garments are hung have been crafted from light-hued mango wood.
    Sachdeva also designed some of the tables and chairs that have been scattered throughout the space, borrowing samples from the adjacent studio.

    Bodice clothes are for the women “challenging conventions” in Indian society

    “Since this was the first space I have designed, I organically had a very clear idea of what I wanted,” she explained.
    “I knew I wanted it to be surrounded by trees and nature, [the store] has a lot of clear glass so I wanted it to be filled with sunlight and since we are in India, we have plenty of it,” Sachdeva added.
    “I feel that the store was a culmination of years of visual information that I have been processing.”

    Clothes rails are crafted from mango wood
    A growing number of designers and brands are attempting to slow the pace of the fashion industry and make consumers more considerate of what they purchase.
    Earlier this year, Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele announced that the high-end label will now be holding just two fashion shows per year instead of the traditional five in a bid to reduce waste that accumulates from producing each collection and the subsequent harm to the environment.

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  • Pinocchio is a tiny bakery in Japan decorated in the colours of bread

    Design studio I IN has used warm, golden hues to decorate the Pinocchio bakery in Yokohama, Japan, which displays bread and pastries on minimalist shelves.Measuring at just 4.2 metres wide, Pinocchio sits in front of Oguchi train station and has been decorated to match the delicacies sold within.
    The tiny bakery project, which I IN also calls Small Icon, has been shortlisted for Dezeen Awards 2020 in the small retail interior category.

    Top image: Pinocchio has been decorated to match the delicacies sold inside. Above: The bakery is just 4.2 metres wide
    “Though the space was extremely limited, the store asked to have a strong identity with the facade and interior,” said I IN.

    “Vivid gradient and soft textures that express the quality and colour of the bread are spread both inside and outside the store,” added the studio.
    “It expresses the soft charm of the bread itself and allows the customer to feel the world of bread with their entire body.”

    Pinocchio is spelt out in a slim, sans serif font above the doorway
    The interior and exterior walls are rendered in a textured material that has been painted with a golden hue, like the crust of a freshly baked loaf or a flaky croissant.
    “A plasterer who works in the performing arts collaborated with us,” said the studio. “Along with the vivid colour, the surface has a dense and bold texture.”

    The interior and exterior walls are rendered in a textured material
    Pinocchio is spelt out in a slim, sans serif font above the wide, square doorway. Glazed doors are set deep into the thick outer walls.

    Six bakeries and sweets shops with delectable interiors

    Inside, the ceilings have been painted to match the crust-coloured walls.
    A corridor of wooden floorboards runs down the centre of the shop, flanked by corridors of flooring that have been delicately sponge-painted in bready colours.

    The bakery interior features crust-coloured walls
    The bakery has only 30 square metres of floor space, so the designers created an uncluttered interior that focuses on the products.
    Two rows of minimal floating shelves made of wood run along both walls and around corners. Spotlights on the ceiling and under the topmost shelves bathe the baked goods in a soft glow.

    Two rows of minimal floating shelves line the walls
    Based in Tokyo, I IN is a design studio that was founded in 2018 by Yohei Terui and Hiromu Yuyama.
    More bakeries with interiors that are good enough to eat include this sugar-pink bakery in Ukraine and an artisanal flour shop and bakery in Canada painted in shades of caramel.
    Photography is by Tomooki Kengaku.
    Project credits:
    Client: Yokohama shokusanArchitect: I INConstructor: LegorettaLighting design: I IN

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  • New York clothing store Nanamica is designed like a Japanese house

    Woodwork form the frame of a gabled house inside this clothing store in New York designed by Japanese architect Taichi Kuma.

    Tokyo-based Kuma designed the store cn the city’s Soho neighbourhood for Japanese clothing brand Nanamica.

    Large mirrors reflect the gabled structure
    Marking its second outpost following another in Tokyo, the store was designed to draw on the brand’s Nanamica, which means house of seven seas. Working with the brand founder, Eiichiro Hommam, Kuma developed the interior design to take cues from a Japanese beach house.

    Shelving is made from matching wood
    The aim is to express “the free and relaxed feeling of the seaside, but with a distinctly Japanese aesthetic sensibility meaning the true highlight is the nanamica products”, according to the brand.

    Shelving and clothing rails tucked outside the wood frame
    A key part of this is a series of gabled structures made from light oak that are intended to outline a house. The frame is slightly smaller that the store to leave space on the outside for shelving for handbags and plants, and clothing rails built on the walls made out of matching wood.
    Wooden shelving for clothing and benches for customers to relax are also arranged inside the house-like structure. The free-standing shelving is backed by a translucent, recycled corrugated plastic matching the wall of the material at the front of the store and the rear, where it shields changing rooms placed behind.

    Corrugated plastic shields changing rooms at the rear
    Two large mirrors are placed on columns that protrude into the space creating the illusion of more room. White spotlighting is arranged along the top of the gable running down the middle of the space.
    Kuma and Hommam stripped back the initial space to create Nanamica New York, creating a bare backdrop for the simple intervention. Walls and ceiling beams are painted white, while the floor is polished concrete.

    Nanamica is located on Wooster Street
    Other recently completed stores in New York City include ONS Clothing store, which features a stage with a green curtain for hosting events, and Los Angeles clothing brand Lunya’s space in Nolita, which takes cues from “upscale New York” apartments.

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  • Linehouse uses typically urban materials inside Xiamen's JNBY store

    Concrete, steel and fluted glass merge inside this shop that design studio Linehouse has created for fashion brand JNBY in Xiamen, China.Chinese cities were a key point of reference for Linehouse, which has decked out JNBY’s Xiamen store with materials often seen in dense urban settings – concrete, glass and steel.
    The interior aesthetic of this JNBY store will be rolled out across all of the brand’s future locations in China – one branch has already opened in Chengdu, and another is set to open in Changsha.

    The JNBY store features a coffered concrete ceiling
    The ceiling of the 100-square-metre store is entirely covered with concrete coffers. Each one is bordered by bright-white LED strip lights.

    A curved, steel-frame screen inset with panels of fluted glass runs around the periphery of the space, set back from the structural walls. The partition balances on chunky cylindrical blocks made from recycled concrete pavement.

    Panels of fluted glass form a screen around the edge of the store
    The urban materiality of the store is interrupted by a couple of ceramic display stands, which Linehouse formed by wrapping convex tiles around steel poles that extend from the floor to the ceiling.
    Some of the stands have been fitted with a metal ring where garments can be hung, while others have small shelves where accessories can be put on show.

    The screen’s glass panels are held within a steel framework
    Convex tiles also clad the front of JNBY’s service counter. When viewed up close, customers will be able to see a myriad of cracks, which Linehouse made visible by adding Chinese ink into the tiles’ glaze.

    John Anthony restaurant by Linehouse is “British tea hall turned Chinese canteen”

    The sculptural bases of the store’s low-lying display tables are made from grainy wood or concrete that the studio has cast against pieces of fabric.

    Convex tiles with subtle cracks clad the store’s service counter
    “The brand sought a modern approach to capture its core values, focusing on material exploration while guiding urban dwellers in appreciating the surprise and poetry of everyday life,” explained Linehouse.
    “So we wanted to contrast the urban represented by the concrete, steel and textured glass with the notion of crafted imperfection represented in the ceramic and timber detailing… they have the qualities of the handmade; variation and contrast.”

    The same tiles form a couple of vertical display stands
    Linehouse was established in 2013 by Alex Mok and Briar Hickling, and works between offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
    The austere material palette of the JNBY store in Xiamen is a far cry from the studio’s recently completed project, Basehall – an upscale food court in Hong Kong. Inside, the venue features walls lined with pink-metal rods, brass light fittings and a blue metalwork ceiling.
    Photography is by Dirk Weiblen.
    Project credits:
    Architect: LinehouseDesign lead: Alex Mok, Briar HicklingDesign team: Cherngyu Chen, Jingru Tong, Celine Chung

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  • Sella Concept brings retro feel to Sister Jane Townhouse in London

    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

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

    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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