Chinese language studio Dongqi Design has turned a disused manufacturing facility in Shanghai right into a multi-brand style and way of life retailer, including shiny marble and metallic surfaces to offset its uncovered concrete shell.
Set throughout three flooring, the XC273 retail house homes designer showrooms and pop-ups alongside a small cafe, in addition to offering areas for short-term exhibitions and occasions.
Previously a state-owned towel manufacturing facility, the constructing had already been modified a number of occasions earlier than the most recent spherical of renovations.
Dongqi Design strived to protect and emphasise these completely different layers of historical past, that are contrasted in opposition to shiny new finishes to create a sort of “nostalgic futurism”.
“All of the variations of the house had been saved as a part of the constructing’s historical past so that folks strolling in may really feel that the boundaries between the previous and the current are blurred, as if that they had walked right into a timeless house,” the studio defined.
The constructing is organised round three voids, which now kind the premise of the shop’s circulation routes.
The most important of those voids consists of a double-height house on the core of the constructing, the place Dongqi Design added a small reflecting pool surrounded by a collonade.
The collonade’s uncooked concrete columns are left uncovered the place they face the pond, whereas their different three sides are wrapped with both marble, wooden or metallic.
This strategy is replicated throughout the shop’s show fixtures to create a way of spatial continuity. It can be seen on the primary ground, the place new paving was added to reinforce the prevailing geometric flooring.
A sound tunnel that gives guests with an experimental music expertise was positioned close to the cafe on the bottom ground.
The second ground is accessed through a metallic staircase, which is suspended above the reflecting pool and winds its approach up by way of a small gap within the ceiling.
“The important thing aspect connecting all of the areas is the steps,” the studio defined.
“The steps are designed of their purest metallic kind, additional enhanced by the small print of the balustrade the place the fence turns into a easy aspect sliding into the structural beam on the backside whereas having a profile on the highest to permit guests to seize the handrail comfortably.”
On the second ground, Dongqi Design chosen a vivid white end to emphasize the previous picket construction of the constructing’s pitched roof. A sequence of sq. home windows let gentle into the house and supply views out throughout the town and towards the sky.
To stability out the in any other case all-white inside, the VIP room is completed in a darker palette. Throughout spring and summer season, these darker shades additionally distinction with the color of the bushes exterior.
XC273 has been shortlisted within the giant retail inside class of this 12 months’s Dezeen Awards.
Different initiatives within the working embody a second-hand bookshop in Shanghai that makes use of supermarket-style crates to show its wares and a reusable gross sales showroom with cloth partitions.
The images is by Raitt Liu.
