Store

Le Labo is a fragrance brand from New York. I first became aware of the brand in 2016, when many factory-style stores, such as Blue Bottle Coffee and Dandelion Chocolate, were emerging in Europe and the United States. I was walking down the streets of London when I chanced upon Le Labo’s distinctive space, with its striking matte black steel storefront reminiscent of a laboratory. My curiosity was piqued, but I wimped out and didn’t go in because I didn’t know what kind of store it was. Later, a friend told me it was a fragrance brand called Le Labo, with an in-store lab for manually blending fragrances, and it left a lasting impression on me.

Japan’s first flagship store of Mardi Mercredi is located along the path to Daikanyama Station. The project, encompassing site selection, design, contractor hiring, and completion, took about nine months.

“A sleeping bag manufacturer’s store design that enables creative displays through a ceiling hanger rack system and movable raised floor.” In addition to high-quality sleeping bags made with a commitment to domestic production, the sleeping bag manufacturer ‘NANGA’ offers a wide range of products, including clothing and various outdoor goods. The store design allows for effective seasonal displays of various products, from small items like shoes, hats, and towels to medium-sized items like outdoor wear and large items like sleeping bags up to about 2 meters. The space is structured with a ceiling hanger rack system and a movable raised floor, enabling the flexible display of items of all sizes.

Tasked to imagine a ~780 square foot space for an artisan chocolatier, Arch&Type asked how built space can enhance the crafting & consumption of chocolate. Rather than focusing on the superficial image (how chocolate appears) and painting cocoa beans on the walls, designers Seth Amman & Adam McCullough explored chocolate’s emotional & physiological impacts and how to evoke such feelings through material and space. The impetus for this exploration came from client Ben Johnson, who presented an image of untempered crystallized chocolate: melted, silky, and flowing. Design began by extracting the feelings from the image and Ben’s product— comfort, mystery, warmth, decadence—then transposing these into the realm of building craft.

Since its inception, the publishing institute – naïve has set up bookstores in several cities that accommodate books and coffee to intrigue readers’ behaviors within its conceptualized space. On a snowfield of Aranya Chongli in northern China, atelier tao+c conceived the new naïve bookstore as a luminous space in the midst of ice and snow, seamlessly integrated with the surrounding landscape, climate and nature. The existing site is a bare concrete space of about 400 sqm with a partially double height ceiling, next to the snow-covered slopes and firtree forest on the south side.

This site is located in Building 3 of COLUMBIA CIRCLE. Historically, this area served as the Columbia Country Club, a recreational destination for Western residents of Shanghai during the concession era. Following a renovation and redesign by OMA in 2018, it reopened as “COLUMBIA CIRCLE”. coffee SHED is a coffee agriculture retail space. It opens to the public square and the community and becomes a daily gathering place for residents. Coffee, agricultural and sideline products and daily necessities are sold here.

Cycle Cycle Mobile Bakehouse is a pop-up café and bakery. The client wanted to explore the relationship between food and land in this project, which perfectly matches the design philosophy of our studio – the connection between land and food, between architecture and people, is essentially the same narrative of “surface” and “essence.” Through contemplation of “local customs” and “human feelings,” we attempt to use architecture to rediscover the connection between people and land, and between people themselves in today’s society.

Electric car manufacturer NIO has opened its flagship location in Europe, occupying a seven-storey building on Amsterdam’s Keizersgracht originally built in the late 19th century. The new NIO House Amsterdam renovates the building with an interior design by MVRDV, which combines design elements reflective of NIO’s brand with a respectful treatment of the historic building. Now offering a wide variety of spaces for relaxing, working, events, and exhibitions, the building’s floors form a color gradient inspired by NIO’s “blue sky coming” slogan, from earthy colors on the lower floors to an airy blue that fills the building’s modernist rooftop pavilion.