Hasta La Ideas

This movie we filmed at Dezeen’s pop-up shop of the future at London department store Selfridges demonstrates how augmented reality technology could transform retail.

Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs introduces the shop we curated for Selfridges‘ Festival of Imagination, which includes a virtual retail experience for Dezeen Watch Store and a life-size walkaround digital model of Zaha Hadid’s superyacht – both created by technology company Inition.

“The Imagine Shop is an attempt to visualise the kind of products, services and shops we might have in the future,” says Fairs.

The space on the ground floor of the department store contains all wall of 3D-printed products and clothing by Janne Kyttanen of 3D Systems, and even features a giant printed ping-pong table.

“The most exciting thing here is that we’ve worked with Inition, which is a 3D visualisation company, to show how augmented reality could be used in stores of the future,” Fairs says.

Inition lead creative Alex Lambert then talks about the augmented-reality projects that his company and Dezeen worked on for this event.

“Inition and Dezeen collaborated on two pieces of augmented reality,” he says, “one for watches available at the Dezeen Watch Store and another for a £300 million superyacht designed by Zaha Hadid.”

Lambert talks through the technology for the yacht models, which works using a tablet camera that picks up the code from patterned markers then displays the 3D model on screen.

“This type of augmented reality relies on a tablet,” he explains. “You’ll see a live video feed coming through the camera and once you point it at the marker the 3D model will appear.”

Two versions of the yacht are included in the shop: a miniature version and a full-size model that glides across the tablet screen.

“We’ve actually created the yacht in full scale,” says Lambert. “It’s a sunny blue ocean with a full-scale yacht sailing past, just to give people an idea of the scale of the superyacht.”

Using the same technology, shoppers can try on designs from Dezeen Watch Store at a virtual watch shop. Shoppers simply attach a band around their wrist and hold it up to a camera, then the chosen watch manifests over the band.

“We take one of these bespoke trackers… turn to the camera, get the marker in view and boom! The watch appears,” Lambert describes.

Inition added texture and shadows to the virtual watches to make them look as realistic as possible. Different models and colourways appear instantaneously around the wrist on screen as they are selected.

“Dezeen are very forward thinking in employing this technology, especially for watches,” says Lambert. “In the future hopefully people will download the app, use a webcam or tablet and try on the watches at home before they purchase online.”

Elsewhere in the department store, Inition also worked with fashion designer Gareth Pugh to install a virtual reality booth on the first floor and an auditorium designed by Dutch architects OMA has been created in the basement.

The Festival of Imagination continues all this month at Selfridges on Oxford Street, central London.

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Dezeen’s Imagine Shop for Selfridges appeared first on Dezeen.

Movie: in our next video interview from Inside Festival, Cara Ang of Asylum Creative discusses the Singapore creative agency’s pop-up store for watch brand Hublot made from thousands of crystal-like folded paper shapes.

Asylum Creative‘s pop-up store for Swiss watch brand Hublot, which won the display category at this year’s Inside Festival, ran for ten days in September 2012 in the Paragon shopping centre on Orchard Road, Singapore.

It comprised over 35,000 black crystal shapes made of paper suspended on fishing wire to form a pavilion in the shopping centre’s main atrium.

“Being a pop-up store, we liked the idea that it was momentary,” explains Ang. “We wanted to create the effect of crystals that are falling but captured in a single moment.”

The shopping centre’s atrium space is six storeys high and Ang says Asylum Creative wanted to design something that made use of this generous vertical space.

“Rather than having a pop-up store that is just sitting on the ground level, we thought it would be great if we could create something that goes upwards,” she explains. “We wanted to catch the attention of shoppers that are on the different levels of the mall [so they would] come downstairs to check out the pop-up store.”

Ang continues: “The gems were made from paper. It was a glossy, reflective black cardboard that we found to be quite suitable because it catches and reflects light in a way that makes them glow.”

Inside Festival 2013 took place at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore from 2 to 4 October. The next Inside Festival will take place at the same venue from 1 to 3 October 2014. Award entries are open February to June 2014.

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“creates the effect of falling crystals” appeared first on Dezeen.

Wooden chairs were piled on top of one another to create the shelves of this pop-up shop for skincare brand Aesop in a Tokyo shopping centre.

Designed by Aesop creative manager Hiroko Shiratori, the Aesop Midtown Installation created a temporary store for the brand earlier this summer in front of a pair of elevators in the Tokyo Midtown Galleria.

Half of the chairs were turned upside down to create the stacks, which formed the display areas for rows of Aesop’s signature brown bottles.

Quotes from various philosophers were inscribed onto the sides of a few selected chairs, plus some were still used as places to sit.

The space was completed by the addition of a wooden counter and a fully functioning sink.

Dezeen interviewed Aesop founder Dennis Paphitis in 2012 about his brand, which regularly commissions designers to come up with unique concepts for stores. He explained: “I was horrified at the thought of a soulless chain”.

Other interesting branches include a Singapore shop with coconut-husk string hanging from the ceiling and a New York kiosk made from piles of newspapers. See more Aesop stores »

Here’s some extra information from Aesop:

Aesop enjoyed a temporary residence in Tokyo Midtown Galleria from 24 April until late June, 2013.

Designed by Aesop Creative Manager Hiroko Shiratori, the interior employed utilitarian chairs in clever linear assembly to create makeshift walls, borders and shelves.

This transitory Midtown installation complemented the brand’s permanent signature stores in Aoyama, Ginza, Shin-Marunouchi, Yokohama and Shibuya. It offered a complete range of skin, hair and body care, and was fitted with a demonstration sink to facilitate the immersive sensorial experience for which Aesop is renowned.

Hiroko studied at the Royal College of Art and Chelsea College and Tokyo Zokei University. She has exhibited in London, Milan, Cologne and Tokyo and her work has been featured in Wallpaper, Casa Brutus, Domus Web, Axis and similar publications and sites.

Aesop was founded in Melbourne in 1987 and today offers its superlative skin, hair and body care products in more than sixty signature stores internationally. As the company evolves – new stores open soon in Hong Kong, London, and New York – meticulously considered and sophisticated design remain paramount to the creation of each space.

The post Aesop Midtown Installation
by Hiroko Shiratori appeared first on Dezeen.

In the first of three interviews Dezeen filmed at pop-up shops during Clerkenwell Design Week this year, Theo founder and Pigeon Light (above) producer Thorsten van Elten explains how the internet is changing the way design is sold (+ movie).

Filmed at the Theo pop-up shop in the Farmiloe Building, van Elten discusses the future of the high street design shop compared to online and pop-up retail, and how he used Ed Carpenter’s Pigeon Light (above) to start his design retail business.

See all our stories from Clerkenwell Design Week 2012 »

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Clerkenwell Design Week appeared first on Dezeen.

The translucent back wall of this pop-up headphone shop changes colour in response to the noise made by Christmas shoppers.

Urbanears have launched their first pop-up shop at Box Park, a temporary shopping centre where retail units are housed in shipping containers.

The monochromatic background and limited material palette of the 40ft unit focuses visitors on the colourful headphones that Urbanears specialise in.

Silicon moulded ears attached to the wall display the in-ear headphones while over-ear headphones hang from hooks.

Boxpark is open for the Christmas period in Shoreditch, east London.

Read more about headphones by Urbanears in our story here.

Here’s some more text from Urbanears and 42 Architects:

URBANEARS BOXPARK by 42 ARCHITECTS

Urbanears has opened their first ever store, located at Boxpark in Shoreditch, London, and designed by emerging practice 42 architects. The store, fitted out within a 40ft ship- ping container, focuses on the contrast between the highly colourful products and a monochromatic, white interior.

Designed as the main feature of the shop, the inner wall of is made of a back-lit perspex frame, illuminated by an RGB Led light which responds to the sounds in the shop and shifts between the seasonal colour palettes of the Urbanears headphones. At night, the shop becomes a colourful beacon for the party-goers and visitors of Shoreditch and Brick Lane.

The shop consists of a limited palette of materials. The walls are made of precision-cut Hanex sheets, chosen for its homogenous and smooth appearance. Combined with an epoxy surfaced floor and a white ceiling that hides all services, the shop works as a de- liberately non-textural backdrop for the products on display.

Bespoke and quirky product fittings adds a sense of playfulness to the space; the Medis in-ear headphones are fitted in silicon molded ears, embedded in the Hanex walls, and the Bagis headphone can be push into bespoke plastic plugs, which are also integrated with the walls.

42 is a young architecture and design studio based in London, UK, established by Johan Berglund in 2009. As a practice we are driven by the belief that architecture can enhance our society through excellence in design, coupled with contextual sensibility and a strong understanding of the social, cultural and environmental needs of our times.

The architectural output is driven by inventive ideas and strong concepts. We have established a thorough research methodology within the office, which means that we are able to deal with most types of projects and contexts without a pre-determined style. We enjoy grand ideas and bold con- cepts, but we also value the small scale and the intricate, and put great emphasis on achieving high quality detailing, atmosphere and materiality, regardless of the size of project and budget. We are often part of projects from an early stage, where our competence and skills can be used to help define the scope and brief of the project, assist with locating suitable sites for the project, as well as help secure funding from public and corporate bodies.

We undertake work in sectors such as Arts and Culture, Commercial, Sports & Leisure, Residential and Public projects. Our experience extends from one-off, carefully crafted interior fit-outs to large public buildings and landscape projects in Sweden, UK and the middle east.

Recently, 42 architects have received much attention for their inventive and playful retail environ- ments for Topshop and The Local Firm, as well as their design for a 6000m2 park area in Falun, Sweden, which is now under construction with expected completion in the spring of 2012.

Urbanears is excited to announce our first ever retail endeavor, located at Boxpark – the world’s first pop-up mall. Located next to Shoreditch High Street Station in London, U.K, Boxpark is an exciting new approach to retail, as the entire complex is made out of ship- ping containers. Much like the Urbanears philosophy of using unexpected materials in new and different ways, using shipping containers as modular retail units is what at- tracted Urbanears to the Boxpark concept.

The Urbanears Boxpark store is designed by 42architects, and features a minimalist de- sign with white walls and a white floor, allowing the colorful headphones to really stand out. There is giant light instillation in the back of the store, which changes colors throughout the day.

Urbanears has many events planned for the Boxpark store throughout the coming year, for more information on these events please sign-up for the Urbanears newsletter, lo- cated at Urbanears.com. “With Urbanears, we like to get people thinking outside of the box. In this case, the box is a shipping container being used as a store. It’s a new and unexpected way of looking at retail.” Says Konrad Bergström, President of Zound Industries.

Urbanears makes headphones that fit your everyday life. Supplying the perfect listening device for anyone with a pocket full of music and a wish to make the most of it. Ur- banears models are designed to optimize sound and captivate self-aware customers by matching preferences in size, style, design, function and relation to music. Other compa- nies may try to emulate the brand, but Urbanears is the original in colorful headphones.