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    Studio Giancarlo Valle transforms historic Stockholm cinema into tactile rug showroom

    Interior design firm Studio Giancarlo Valle has turned an early 20th-century cinema in Stockholm into a showroom for rug company Nordic Knots, restoring its original stone details and adding warm wood and brushed steel.

    Mottled green marble covers the walls of the 150-square-metre showroom, which is located in the central Östermalm area of Stockholm.
    As part of the revamp Studio Giancarlo Valle restored the existing marble – a traditional Swedish type of stone called Kolmårdsmarmor – as well as the building’s grand central staircase.
    The showroom is located in a former cinema in ÖstermalmThe studio also added more contemporary touches, such as brushed stainless-steel details and walnut and oak furniture.
    “The interior is historic and we wanted to preserve the architectural details, so we restored the terrazzo and plaster,” studio founder Giancarlo Valle told Dezeen.

    “The building is a 20th-century former movie theatre and it was critical to maintain a sense of grandness when entering the space,” he added.
    Green marble from Sweden clads the wallsNordic Knots’ co-founder Liza Laserow wanted the interior to feature as many of the original details in the 1918 building as possible.
    “During the demolition of some old closets, we discovered the original floor to the building from the early 1900s – a muted green terrazzo with a red and white checkerboard,” Laserow told Dezeen.
    “Discovering the original flooring made us realise that we wanted to use terrazzo throughout, as the green colour in the original terrazzo matched the green marble on the walls perfectly.”
    The brand managed to find a Swedish company that could replicate the original terrazzo to cover the entire floor area.
    Rugs designed by Giancarlo Valle decorate the spaceThe stone floors and walls are complemented by a variety of natural materials.
    “To balance out the existing stone and terrazzo, we brought in warmer, more tactile materials like pine, oak, and walnut,” Valle said.
    Oak and walnut shelves decorate the walls of the Sample Bar, a room where customers can see samples of different Nordic Knots rugs, and where Studio Giancarlo Valle introduced custom-made oak lounge chairs.
    The Sample Bar features wooden shelving and steel furnitureValle also added brushed-steel touches to the Nordic Knots showroom, including on its custom-made steel and walnut coffee bar in the main gallery area and a table in the Sample Bar.
    The furniture throughout is designed in reference to the building, such as the curved front of the coffee bar that reflects the shape of its doorposts.

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    Laserow and co-founder Fabian Berglund had previously worked with Valle on a series of rugs for the company, which resulted in four designs, including an all-beige rug with a pattern of open hands and a red rug with flower buds on it.
    These are used to decorate the walls and floors of the showroom.
    Meeting rooms are located in the back of the buildingAt the back of the building sit the company’s meeting rooms and office spaces, which feature wooden furniture and a colour palette of saturated blues and mustard yellows.
    “The new interiors very much honour the building’s history,” Valle said.
    “We were careful to preserve the historic architectural details, along with the feeling of entering a grand theatre, when designing the space.”
    The original terrazzo floor is replicated throughout the spaceThe showroom opened during this year’s edition of Stockholm Design Week, which also featured an exhibition of “functional art” by Danish studio Tableau and a virtual apartment.
    Studio Giancarlo Valle’s designs have previously been used for projects including a showroom in a Brooklyn warehouse and a co-working company founded by Yves Béhar.
    The photography is courtesy of Nordic Knots.

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    Coil + Drift opens lighting studio and showroom in the Catskills

    Lighting studio Coil + Drift has opened an office, showroom and production facility in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York that places modern elements in a barn-like building.

    Coil + Drift founder John Sorensen-Jolink, who relocated to the area in 2021, has created a new home for his brand in a barn-like structure surrounded by nature.
    Coil + Drift’s new space in the Catskills showcases the brand’s products”By relocating their queer-owned design business to the countryside, Coil + Drift is sparking a visceral conversation between people in a thriving rural creative community about how what we make defines who we are,” said the studio.
    The building encompasses 3,000 square feet (280 square metres) and boasts tall ceilings, which are painted white along with its plywood-panelled walls.
    The showroom includes an office space, defined by a chocolate-brown rugThe space is divided between a combined office and showroom, and a production facility where an in-house team now creates all of the company’s lighting designs.

    In one corner of the showroom sits a black wood-burning stove, with a flue that extends through the roof, next to a pile of chopped logs used to fuel it.
    Furniture is displayed on stepped plinths, accompanied by lighting aboveChocolate-brown area rugs contrast the pale concrete floors, defining the entrance, the office space and a spot by the fire in lieu of walls or partitions.
    Plinths are used to raise furniture designs, arranged in styled vignettes along with lighting, plants and small accessories.

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    More objects are displayed on wooden shelves of varying lengths, held up at different heights on thin golden rods.
    Industrial-looking metal and glass doors mounted on rolling tracks separate the showroom from the workshop, which is located in an adjoining room.
    The showroom features a white ceiling and walls, and a pale concrete floorOn show are several new additions to popular Coil + Drift collections, such as a floor version of the Yama table lamp and a “mobile-like” chandelier that joins the Atlas series.
    Also to coincide with its move and expansion, the company has launched a trade-focused online platform for its products.
    The building also houses a production facility behind industrial-style doorsCoil + Drift’s previous projects have included styling a townhouse in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights neighbourhood for Hatchet Design.
    Sorensen-Jolink, a former dancer, is one of many creatives that moved from New York City to nearby rural areas, either during or following the Covid-19 pandemic.
    Coil + Drift founder John Sorensen-Jolink relocated to the Catskills in 2021 before opening the new studioUpstate New York, and particularly the Hudson Valley and Catskills area, was already growing in popularity as a destination for artists and designers before the lockdowns, thanks to its reputation for vintage furniture shopping and art institutions.
    Then low property prices and high demand for space and fresh air sparked an exodus to the region, when many bought second homes or relocated permanently.
    The photography is by Zach Hyman.

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    Karimoku opens Kyoto showroom informed by traditional houses and temple gardens

    Designer Keiji Ashizawa has created the interior of Japanese furniture brand Karimoku’s second showroom, which features a combination of its own wooden furniture and pieces by local artists and artisans.

    Set in a three-storey building, the brand describes Karimoku Commons Kyoto as a “hybrid space”, which will function as a showroom and also house office spaces for employees.
    The space is located inside a former machiya – a traditional Japanese wooden townhouse – in Kyoto, a city known for its temples, Shinto shrines and gardens.
    The showroom is located in a Kyoto townhouseAshizawa, who has worked with Karimoku for years and also designed its first showroom in Tokyo, looked to the history of both the city and the building when designing the interior.
    “I really wanted to use the language of the townhouse and also took inspiration from Kyoto gardens,” Ashizawa told Dezeen.

    For the showroom’s ground floor area, he drew on the doma areas in traditional Japanese homes, which had bare dirt floors and functioned as a bridge between the indoors and the outdoors.
    It features wood furniture and wood panelling by KarimokuHere, Ashizawa placed furniture in light-coloured wood, including chairs by British architect Norman Foster and pieces by Danish studio Norm Architects and Ashizawa himself.
    The floor is grey concrete, which was matched by pale-grey plaster walls and a ceiling in the same colour.
    Art and ceramics by Japanese artists decorate the spaceWooden slats, of a kind traditionally used in Kyoto homes and stores to let light into buildings while maintaining privacy, cover parts of the glazing at the front of the room.
    Light wooden panelling by Karimoku hides built-in storage spaces and functions as a shelf.
    The first floor has a darker colour paletteOn the first floor, Ashizawa chose to use a darker colour palette, with furniture pieces in smoked oak wood and flooring and wall panels in dark wood.
    “When you visit a tourism house or a temple in Kyoto, the old wood, like on the temple floors, is a very dark colour,” he said. “I thought such a colour had to be the key colour [for the project].”
    The layout of this area also drew on the walkways and paths of Kyoto’s temple gardens.
    “It’s more of a guide to how to articulate the space,” Ashizawa explained. “We can think of the furniture as an art piece or a stone – it’s a kind of installation.”
    A wall alcove functions as a tokonoma display spaceThe top floor of Karimoku Commons Kyoto will function as a “library space” and showcase the latest collections and collaborations from the contemporary Case Study, Karimoku New Standard, MAS and Ishinomaki Laboratory brands.
    Throughout the showroom, earthy ceramics and rough-hewn sculptures by Japanese artists were used as decoration, which add to the organic feel brought by the wood.

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    Pieces by ceramics brand Nota Shop in the nearby Shiga prefecture and vases by Kyoto artist Ai Ono were among the objects chosen for the space by stylist Yumi Nakata, who worked with Ashizawa on the project.
    These were placed on tables and shelves as well as in wall recesses informed by traditional Japanese tokonoma alcoves, where homeowners would display artistic objects.
    Keiji Ashizawa designed the interior of the showroom”There are so many places in which to show something,” Ashizawa said of Karimoku Commons Kyoto.
    “In a traditional Japanese house, there are many spaces like this, showing paintings, ceramics or flowers, which I think is one of the beauties of the culture of the Japanese house. In many ways, we tried to make such a space.”
    The top floor displays a variety of furniture piecesKarimoku, which is Japan’s largest wooden furniture brand, started out making traditional Japanese furniture.
    It now also works with a number of designers on the more contemporary sub-brands Case Study, Karimoku New Standard, MAS and Ishinomaki Laboratory, which are the four brands that will be sold in the Karimoku Commons Kyoto showroom.
    The Kyoto space is Karimoku’s second showroom after TokyoAshikawa hopes the space will help to promote a modern design aesthetic.
    “Karimoku is trying to promote modern furniture in modern life,” he said. “I need to explain about the Japanese living space situation – for example, in 1960, sixty years ago, we didn’t have much furniture in the living space.”
    “And then the modern living space came to Japan and people started buying their tables, chairs and even the sofa; it’s quite new, so people don’t necessarily understand how to use a sofa,” he added.
    “Japanese living spaces can be too messy, so it’s quite nice to show them like this.”
    Previous projects by Ashizawa include a curve-shaped tofu restaurant and a Blue Bottle Coffee shop in Kobe. Karimoku recently collaborated with Foster on a collection of furniture used in the architect’s Foster Retreat in Martha’s Vineyard.
    The photography is by Tomooki Kengaku.

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    Patricia Urquiola creates lofty showroom for Moroso in Manhattan

    Moroso has opened a new showroom in Manhattan designed by Patricia Urquiola, marking the 70th anniversary of the Italian brand.

    The 4,300 square-foot showroom (400 square metres) has a double-height space that was previously occupied by an art gallery.
    There are spaces for meetings and officesDespite its scale, Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola sought to replicate the feeling of a home, by setting up the furniture in smaller configurations that could be seen in a living room or another intimate setting.
    The space is located at 105 Madison Avenue, in central Manhattan. It replaces the brand’s previous showroom in the SoHo neighbourhood, which opened in 2007.
    The showroom is located in New York City”The new Moroso showroom in New York transcends the concept of the exhibition space,” said the Italian brand founded in 1952 by Agostino and Diana Moroso.

    “[The showroom] introduces visitors to the company through a series of appealing domestic settings in which interiors in restrained colours heighten the appeal of the furniture on display,” Moroso added.
    Large columns were finished with handmade terracotta tilesThe team refinished the interiors with colourful pink finishes, new wooden floors and curved surfaces rather than corners.
    “The interiors are reinterpreted with an emphasis on their gently curved contours and lack of sharp angles, while particular attention is paid to colour,” said Moroso.
    The inaugural collection includes a sofa that is meant to look like moss-covered rocksLarge columns within the space were finished with shiny, handmade terracotta tiles, complementing the prevailing colour palette.
    Along the walls at the periphery of the space, Studio Urquiola created plant-filled alcoves, which help break up the space into smaller sections.
    Plant-filled alcoves line the walls of the space”Everything is studied in detail, and even the lighting is designed to make the space elegant and welcoming, while plants and niches create focal points in the different rooms,” said Moroso.
    In addition to the main exhibition space, the showroom includes a smaller mezzanine at the back, where the brand can host architects or other design professionals for meetings.

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    The mezzanine space is divided into a lounge area, workstations and a glass structure with meeting rooms and a private office.
    A blue staircase connects this level to the ground floor and to the cellar, which has larger pieces.
    “Studio Urquiola’s architectural design alters the existing structure while maintaining its spatial characteristics, perfecting and emphasizing their soft, enveloping language with warm tones of terracotta and wood,” said Moroso.
    Patricia Urquiola also created furniture for the inaugural connectionThe inaugural collection on display at the showroom includes a sofa that is meant to look like moss-covered rocks by Sofia Lagerkvist and Anna Lindgren of Swedish design studio Front, and a series of colourful furniture that was designed by Patricia Urquiola called Pacific, which is finished in wool upholstery.
    Patricia Urquiola founded her eponymous studio in 2001, with her partner Alberto Zontone. The studio takes on architectural commissions, as well as designing furniture, products, and exhibitions.
    Other projects by the Spanish designer include the Haworth Hotel in Michigan, which was revamped to become a “design showcase” and a table with mix-matched legs for Cassina.
    The photography is by Alex Kroke unless otherwise indicated.

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    In Common With opens lighting studio and showroom in Brooklyn warehouse

    Lighting brand In Common With has opened a studio, showroom and production facility inside a Brooklyn warehouse.

    The 3,500-square-foot (325-square-metre) space is located in a former industrial building in Gowanus, which was recently renovated by Morris Adjmi Architects and is home to a variety of creative companies.
    In Common With founders Nick Ozemba and Felicia Hung gave their showroom a residential feelBringing all of In Common With’s operations under one roof, the set-up allows founders Nick Ozemba and Felicia Hung to assemble and showcase their products in a residential-style setting.
    The opening of the space also coincides with the launch of In Common With’s 20-piece glass lighting collection, Flora, which was created in collaboration with French-American designer Sophie Lou Jacobsen.
    Lighting from the brand’s Flora collection join vintage and contemporary furniture”Five years ago, Felica and I set out to create a different kind of lighting brand based on a collaborative model with other makers and centered around material exploration,” said Ozemba.

    “Our new space will allow us to push this approach further, grow our team and take on more ambitious projects.”
    Plastered walls and custom millwork contribute earthy tones to the interiorThe showroom presents new and previous lighting collections – designed with ceramicists, glassmakers and metalworkers from around the world – amongst a mix of vintage and contemporary furniture.
    A Mario Bellini sofa and a Tapestry Chair by Giancarlo Valle anchor a living room area, lit by a chandelier and a floor lamp from the Flora range.

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    Plastered walls and custom millwork join the exposed wooden ceiling, uniting a selection warm earthy tones.
    Artworks by Charlotte Hallberg, Al Svaboda and more were also commissioned for the showroom.
    The studio and production space features custom workstations”Highly tactile and hand-crafted details create an immersive environment while celebrating the architectural details, generous proportions, and ample light of the industrial building where they are based,” said the team.
    In the studio, custom work tables, oak shelving, storage and technical lighting were all installed to aid production.
    There’s a dedicated area for prototyping new productsComponents for In Common With’s modular Up Down Sconce and Alien Orb Pendant are arranged by colour on the shelves. There’s also a dedicated area for the team to prototype new products.
    Ozemba and Hung met while studying at RISD, and founded their brand in 2017 before debuting a range of handmade clay designs a year later.
    Components for In Common With’s Up Down Sconce are arranged by colour on oak shelvingBrooklyn is home to a thriving creative community, with many artists and designers living and working in the New York City borough.
    Other workspaces that have opened there recently include a series of historic factory buildings converted by Worrell Yeung, and retailer Radnor’s studio and showroom in another former factory.
    The photography is by William Jess Laird.

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    Johnston Marklee installs villas inside industrial LA building for Holly Hunt Showroom

    Architecture studio Johnston Marklee has installed a pair of villas inside an industrial building in Hollywood to create display spaces for design brand Holly Hunt.

    The LA-based studio collaborated with Holly Hunt’s executive creative director Jo Annah Kornak to create the showroom on North Highland Avenue.
    A vaulted villa is one of two volumes installed inside Holly Hunt’s LA showroomLed by Johnston Marklee partner Sharon Johnston, the project involved the overhaul of a two-storey, 1940s building into a flagship location for the brand to showcase its furniture and home products.
    Holly Hunt’s design aesthetic and the city’s “characteristic industrial grit” were combined through the use of rich finishes and raw surfaces.
    Furniture from the brand’s Vladimir Kagan and Holly Hunt Studio collections are displayed in the north villaTwo villas were created inside the showroom to present the designs in residential-scale spaces, surrounded by a “promenade” that shows off the building’s tall ceilings and exposed concrete beams.

    “The raw concrete shell frames an interior street,” said Johnston.
    “A double-height promenade space around the villas, together with the villa interiors, creates an atmosphere and experiential narrative for the display of elegant domestic furniture for house and garden.”
    The second villa includes interior vignettes on the lower levelThe villa to the north features a vaulted ceiling and wall niches and is used to display the brand’s Vladimir Kagan and Holly Hunt Studio collections.
    At the other end of the building, a two-level structure is arranged around a large circular atrium at the centre.
    A circular atrium is located at the centre of the second villaThe lower floor comprises a series of interior vignettes, while rooms upstairs house a library of textiles, leather, trim and rugs, along with wallcoverings from a variety of affiliate brands.
    “The visitors’ journey through the spaces reflects a spatial dialogue between exterior and interior, linked through richly finished in-between spaces,” Johnston said.
    A taller space named the promenade surrounds the building’s interiorLight-grey oak flooring runs through both villas, while terrazzo, concrete walls and hand-troweled plaster are all executed in a matte finish in the promenade.
    Bronze details also feature throughout the showroom, including the entry vestibules, stairwell and lighting gallery.

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    Although most of the interior is decorated in neutral tones, a 24-foot (7.3-metre), mustard-coloured sofa follows a curved corner of the building.
    “We approached the interior architecture in the same way that we would design a new product, being very thoughtful with our use of scale, proportion and materials,” said Kornak.
    The concrete of the 1940s industrial building is left exposed”We were very intentional about incorporating elements that celebrate LA’s signature urban aesthetic, like the original exposed concrete walls, beams, and other details throughout the space,” she added.
    Holly Hunt was set up in 1983 by its eponymous founder in Chicago.
    The brand previously operated two spaces within LA’s Pacific Design Center, but has scaled down to just the sixth-floor showroom now that the North Highland Avenue flagship has opened.
    Matte finishes and bronze details are used throughout the showroomJohnston and partner Mark Lee established their studio in 1998, and have since completed many private residential projects in Southern California – including the Vault House and Knoll’s West Hollywood showroom – as well as around the world.
    Lee is also chair of the Department of Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design.
    The photography is by The Ingalls.

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    Unusual colour combinations make up Durat showroom in Helsinki

    Finnish interior designer Linda Bergroth has brought together unexpected colour combinations for the Durat showroom in Helsinki, which is filled with the manufacturer’s terrazzo-like surface material made from plastic waste.

    The showroom occupies around 100 square metres of space in central Helsinki on the site of a former coffee shop.
    Durat’s showroom shows off the brand’s surfacing material across multiple displaysDurat’s speckled surface material can be used in sheets or moulded into basically any shape, so the company wanted a showroom that would convey a sense of endless possibilities.
    To this end, Bergroth made almost everything in the store out of Durat surfacing, including three display areas, a wall of colourful samples and a central kitchen-style island.
    Interior designer Linda Bergroth combined unusual coloursThe display areas were designed to show off the material’s different thicknesses, joints and mounts while using a broad selection from the brand’s range of more than 1,000 colours.

    One display features different washbasins, either integrated into a countertop or mounted on top. This area combines tones of turquoise, salmon pink and mustard with a white worktop that looks as if it was topped with a scattering of rainbow sprinkles.
    The displays showcase some of Durat’s different shapes, joints and thicknessesAnother display features a freestanding orange soaking tub set against an apple-green wall. Two shelves line the walls, holding more colourful material samples cut into contrasting shapes to invite play.
    “The showroom is mostly serving architects and designers,” Bergroth told Dezeen. “So it was easy for me to relate to the needs of the customer, who wants to understand the anatomy and possibilities of the material.”
    Material samples are displayed on floating shelves”Many of the decisions were made to communicate these possibilities and not define how someone’s compositions should look,” she continued. “Untypical colour combinations and mismatched patterns are also a way of freeing the user to find new ways of thinking.”
    Bergroth finished the showroom with minimal furnishings and fittings, including matt white Vola faucets she describes as resembling “immaterial cut-outs in the heavily patterned surfaces”.

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    There is also a storage room and a private office area, both concealed behind doors that blend into the display areas.
    The shopfront features big windows in two directions, which Bergroth and Durat used to their advantage by creating a design that could be experienced from the street as much as from the inside.
    An office and storage area are hidden behind doors in the displays”The layout is designed in a way so it can be well explored from the street, also outside office hours,” said Bergroth. “This brings a nice brand visibility and brightens up the neighbourhood during the dark months.”
    Durat surfacing is made from 30 per cent post-industrial plastics and is fully recyclable. The company aims to create a closed-loop material cycle where all Durat surfaces are repurchased at the end of their life and turned into new products.
    Durat surfacing can also be used to form furniture piecesBergroth also worked with the material in some of her previous projects, including the pop-up Zero Waste Bistro she designed for the WantedDesign Manhattan fair.
    Other projects by the interior designer include another Helsinki shop interior for the brand Cover Story, which makes plastic-free paint.

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    Atmosphere Architects creates optical illusion in Chengdu jewellery store

    Geometric grids cover most of the surfaces in this futuristic jewellery store in Chengdu, China, designed by local studio Atmosphere Architects to play with customers’ spacial perception.

    Located in the Jingronghui shopping centre in Chegdu’s Jinjiang district, the 180-square-metre concept store belongs to jewellery brand Kill Via Kindness, abbreviated as KVK.
    KVK is a jewellery store in Chendu’s Jingronghui shopping centreThe store features a dimly-lit entrance lined with green resin panels, which leads through to a windowless display space where the walls are clad in matt black tiles.
    A gridded black framework is installed across the interior’s luminous, frosted acrylic ceiling and matched below by white floor tiles. At one end of the room, a mirrored wall creates the impression that the interior stretches on to infinity.
    Glossy black tiles cover the store’s modular display units”The core concept behind KVK is ‘the reorganised philosophy of art’,” Atmosphere Architects told Dezeen. “Therefore, the client wanted a space that is flexible and easy to reorganise with flexible and adaptable modules.”

    In response, the studio created display units clad in glossy black tiles, which can be divided and joined together to form different modular configurations.
    Drawers hidden in the walls illuminate when openedDrawers integrated into the shop’s tiled walls provide additional storage and double up as adaptable lighting features.
    “When the drawers are pulled out, the light turns on immediately,” said Atmosphere Architects, which is led by designer Tommy Yu.

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    Spiders are a reoccurring motif in KVK’s jewellery. The brand’s concept store nods to this idea via the spindly legs jutting out from the entrance and the black gridded framework that covers the floors and ceilings like a web.
    “There are many elements about conflict, consciousness awakening, aggression and sharpness in KVK’s product concept,” the studio said.
    “In the space, materials and colours with different lights and shades, depths and textures are selected to express the ideology and beauty of collision.”
    The entranced is lined with green resin panelsOther futuristic monochrome interiors featured on Dezeen include a space-themed cafe in central Shanghai by design studio Linehouse.
    The photography is by Chuan He of Here Space.

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