Hasta La Ideas

Sunglasses by accessories designer Linda Farrow are presented on golden beams embedded into gravel mounds at this pop-up shop in New York by design studio Neiheiser & Valle (+ slideshow).

Neiheiser & Valle‘s installation inside a shipping container was created to display Linda Farrow‘s eyewear as part of the BOFFO Building Fashion series of pop-up shops. The container is filled with and surrounded by piles of stone chips, into which V-shaped beams are embedded horizontally.

Farrow’s sunglasses are displayed in rows along the length of the golden girders, which face both up and down so the eyewear is nestled within the V or balanced on top. “Eyewear mediates our vision and moderates our intake of light, but it also has the power to transform and transport,” said Neiheiser & Valle.

The gravel mounds are piled up against mirrored walls, creating the illusion of infinite dunes. Gravel also surrounds the exterior of the shipping container, providing continuity between the small interior and the large warehouse in which it sits.

The installation opened last week at the SuperPier site, located on 15th Street at the Hudson River Park in New York City, and will continue until 24 December.

Piled up construction materials seem to be a popular choice for installations in the USA at the moment. The entrance to this year’s Design Miami exhibition last week was marked by a giant mound of sand.

Photographs are by Naho Kubota, unless otherwise stated.

More information from the designers follows:

Boffo Building Fashion 2013
Linda FarrowW + Neiheiser & Valle

Thursday, December 12th, 2013 the second installation in the AIA award winning BOFFO Building Fashion series opened with a three week fashion and architecture retail installation by Linda Farrow + Office of Neiheiser & Valle. A shipping container and surrounding warehouse space at the SuperPier at Hudson River Park (15th Street) in New York City, will be radically transformed, inviting visitors to a unique public art experience.

An endless landscape of stone and light by Neiheiser & Valle adjacent to the Hudson River provides the backdrop for more than just Linda Farrow’s collection of luxurious eyewear, but an experience that transforms the brand for its New York City fans.

This BOFFO Building Fashion project is designed to transport the visitor from the dark winter of New York City to an infinite landscape of stone and light. Neiheiser & Valle state, “Eyewear mediates our vision and moderates our intake of light, but it also has the power to transform and transport.” For this installation, the architectural elements are minimised while the spatial qualities essential to both vision and illusion – deep space, radiance, and reflection – are maximised.

The only objects present are the Linda Farrow glasses, suspended against an undulating environment of rich material qualities – coarse piles of stone, gold displays, ethereal mirrors, polished marble, and crisp light. Parallel walls of mirrored reflection multiply the space in both directions, creating an infinite field that is both heavy and light, an expansive landscape paradoxically contained within the confines of a shipping container, an oasis of luxury and warmth unexpectedly discovered in a cold warehouse by the Hudson River.

The installation will offer a selection of eyewear from the Linda Farrow collection, as well as its celebrated international designer collaborations. Unveiling for the first time the SS14 collaboration collections with Suno and 3.1 Phillip Lim, as well as continuing collaborations with designers like Dries Van Noten, Jeremy Scott, Oscar de la Renta, The Row, and Prabal Gurung.

Alongside the eyewear collection, the installation will offer a capsule collection in celebration of the Linda Farrow tenth anniversary of the relaunch of the brand. Expanding into lifestyle for the first time, the capsule collection is a luxurious selection of collaborative projects created with leading designers including shoes by Nicholas Kirkwood, lingerie by Agent Provocateur, jewellery by Mawi and the first Linda Farrow handbag, among other items and will be the exclusive brick & mortar to carry the capsule in New York.

“2013 has been a milestone for Linda Farrow. To be able to celebrate a ten-year anniversary with such exciting projects like the capsule collection, and now partnering with a storied project such as BOFFO Building Fashion series, is incredible,” say Simon Jablon and Tracy Sedino of Linda Farrow.

Linda Farrow offers what most eyewear companies can no longer offer: “innovation” in the purest sense of the word. Established in 1970, the Linda Farrow brand of luxury eyewear rose quickly to acclaim amongst stylish Londoners and international jet set. Originally a fashion designer, Linda Farrow was one of the first to treat sunglasses as fashion, producing collection after cutting-edge collection.

A tireless experimenter, Farrow pioneered many of the shapes and styles that remain stylish today. Linda Farrow’s long tradition of originality has been kept current by the use of collaborating with the most exciting designers to date, who bring a new perspective, whilst respecting the values which have made Linda Farrow a by-word for style, exclusivity and excellence.

Linda Farrow has never lost sight of what its fundamental values are; to create innovative products at a luxury level. Today renowned for its collaborations with many of the world’s most acclaimed designers (Dries Van Noten, Oscar de la Renta, The Row, Matthew Williamson, Alexander Wang, Jeremy Scott, Kris van Assche among them). Its unprecedented range of vintage sunglasses (over 2000 original designs from the 70s and 80s), and its uncompromisingly luxurious 18K and Luxe lines, Linda Farrow has established itself as one of the most exciting brands in fashion today.

Neiheiser & Valle is a multidisciplinary design practice committed to both playful experimentation and serious research. Ryan Neiheiser and Giancarlo Valle see design as a conversation, a loose exchange of forms and ideas, an open dialogue with their histories and surroundings. They approach each project with an intellectual curiosity, an artistic rigor, and a strong commitment to realising their ideas in the world.

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golden girders embedded in gravel appeared first on Dezeen.

Garments in this retail interior by Australian design studio Sibling are displayed on copper clothes rails and stacked wooden cubes (+ slideshow).

Sibling created this interior for Australian clothes brand Kloke inside a Victorian building in Melbourne, which features locally sourced ash wood cubes that act as flexible display units.

“The interior design is based on a three-dimensional grid,” Sibling’s Timothy Moore told Dezeen. “The cubes are stacked to create the alcove for the fitting room beneath. Several of the cubes throughout the store can be reconfigured.”

In the centre of the store, a cluster of wooden and copper-framed units make up the counter.

A copper pipe is bent in four places to create an asymmetric freestanding rail from which clothes are hung.

Garments also hang from bent copper rods attached to the ceiling on both sides of the store.

The shop is illuminated with cove lighting and hanging baskets are suspended from the ceiling. Photography by Ben Glezer.

Here is some more information from the designer:

Sibling collaborated with Kloke to design the fashion brand’s premiere flagship store on Brunswick Street.

The store is organised around an invisible grid that emerges in parts, such as in display components and a timber stairway to heaven. The rule of the grid carries through to the life of the store, where it provides a system by which the store can be re-organised over time.

The shell is given new life with plants throughout, while windows and walls undressed from clutter finally welcome the daylight. The materiality of the space is Victorian Ash, concrete, limed floorboards and copper.

Retail Interior
Date: November 2013
Client: Kloke
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Programme: Retail
Status: Completed

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and wooden display units by Sibling appeared first on Dezeen.

Movie: in our next exclusive interview from Inside Festival, Aman Aggarwal explains how his studio Charged Voids combined traditional designs with modern construction techniques to create the interior of Tashya, a high-end Indian bridal store in Chandigarh. 

Tashya by Charged Voids, a local studio founded by Aggarwal and Siddharth Gaind, won the Shops category at last month’s Inside Festival.

Aggarwal says that the idea for the interior came from the Indian fashion industry itself, where the intricate embroidery of traditional craftsmen is still used in combination with modern industrial machinery.

“The concept emanated from the approach that has been dominant in the Indian clothing industry for quite a while now,” he explains. “You have these high-power machines and looms and everything, but you [also] have these traditional Indian craftsmen.”

He continues: “It’s not the same in the construction industry [where] the artisans are losing work. So the store is actually an attempt to revive those craft practices and integrate them with the modern construction industry.”

The store interior makes extensive use of jalis, traditional wooden screens with ornate patterns cut into them.

“We started with four motifs, which are the basic elements of a lot of jali patterns,” Aggarwal says. “Then we started using those motifs on different scales. The jalis we designed, which were actually cut using a laser, were a combination of all these motifs at different scales.”

Charged Voids combined these jali screens cut using a computer-controlled process with traditionally crafted decorative metalwork. “We wanted these craft practices of India to come into the mainstream of construction,” Aggarwal claims.

The store also features a number of private lounges, where those less interested in shopping can take a break.

“Bridal wear in India is a big thing,” Aggarwal explains. “It’s always a big family affair where you have eight to nine people coming in just to select a couple of dresses. The focus was to get the people who are really interested to shop and the people who are not really interested to entertain them in a different place.”

This movie was filmed at Inside Festival 2013, which 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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craft practices with modern construction” appeared first on Dezeen.

Skincare brand Aesop‘s latest shop in Marylebone, London, by architects Studio KO features shelves that reference ladders used to collect fruit.

Paris and London-based architects Studio KO designed the Aesop store on Marylebone High Street, stripping back the interior of the former maternity clothing store to expose original features.

“All the existing fabric was hidden behind linings, plater boards and shop fittings,” Studio KO partner Clemence Pirajean told Dezeen. “One needed much imagination to see it as rough as it is today.”

Renovation work inside the building revealed hidden windows, a fireplace and coal store. These were all kept to preserve the original footprint.

Products are presented on white-washed pear wood shelves inspired by fruit collectors’ ladders, which line the exposed brick walls coloured in a musk tone.

“The existing floorboards are retained, restored and sealed,” said Pirajean. “One plank is missing with a mysterious green moss growing through.”

A cast concrete sink sits near the entrance beneath three black pendant lamps that match the facade.

Aesop designs each of its stores so no two are the same. When we interviewed the brand’s founder Dennis Paphitis told us that he was “horrified at the thought of a soulless chain”. The most recent designs we featured include the Berlin Mitte shop lined with emerald-coloured tiles and a pop-up shop in Tokyo where wooden chairs were piled on top of one another to create the shelves.

Photography is by Dan Glasser.

Here’s some more information that Studio KO sent to us:

The property sits in between two very contrasting urban scenes: to the front, a beautifully animated Marylebone High Street and to the back, a quiet mews with paving stones and little brick houses.

The back ‘courtyard’ echoes the English countryside, which was not too far from central London a little while ago.

With a window to the back courtyard and a large vitrine to the front high street, the store acts as a link between these two scenes. The initial idea was to allow those two different worlds enter the space from both points, creating a continuity and emphasising on the transparency.

We used the vegetation as a strong conceptual element from the beginning: we liked the idea of ferns or wild vegetation growing through the cracks of old walls. In the end, the idea of robust ferns was retained, with various sizes and species.

All the architectural existing elements where brought back to life: restored and maintained forming an integral part of the design. Once the plasterwork and the dry linings are removed, traces of history appear: a former fireplace, a coal store, remains of old rooms/crevices. All elements bringing complexity to the volume.

Then comes the monochrome: a super-matte colour extracted from the smoky clay colours surrounding the store. A matte powder of foggy red was sprayed onto the textured walls and ceilings, revealing bubbles and irregularities of plaster.

The existing floorboards are retained, restored and sealed. One plank is missing with a mysterious green moss growing through.

Shelving units, made from white-washed scaffold wood, were designed for displaying the Aesop products. Inspired from fruit ladders, simply leaning against the painted bricks, utilitarian looking. Looking closer, one can see the detail of a very honest fixing system, partly adjustable, with timber rods supporting the shelves, and a timber hinged front face preventing products from falling out.

The point of sale refers to the honest construction of a palette, using planks of white wash scaffold boards, cross layered with end-grain planks. A former fireplace is retained, framed using wrought iron to emphasise its depth and shade.

The long basin in rough cast concrete, complete with oversized taps and exposed pipes resembles a water drinking trough. It sits against the staircase leading to the basement, encased between reclaimed brick walls.

The wrought iron hatches above, with their Georgian wire glass inserts, use the language of a greenhouse. The black painted façade and outdoor elements frame the interior view of the store. The abstraction and simplicity contrasts with the richness of the colour and the textures.

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by Studio KO appeared first on Dezeen.

This labyrinth-like fashion store in Hangzhou, China, by 3Gatti Architecture Studio features a rotating toilet and a hidden love room “equipped with bar and condoms” (+ slideshow).

3Gatti Architecture Studio created a complex landscape of extruded cuboid volumes on the upper level and a similarly intricate topography on the ceiling of the floor below at the store, which is the first physical outlet for online fashion retailer D2C.

The architects liken the forms to rock forms generated by volcanic activity. “Volcanic Slab is an existing building slab reshaped with volcanic energy to accommodate two floors of retail space,” said chief architect Francesco Gatti.

Most intriguing – although unfortunately not shown in the photos – is a rotating, circular toilet, behind which is a hidden “love nest”.

“In case you want to go to the toilet the challenge ratio increases considerably,” the architects write. “Behind the door you will find a curved rubber-like wall impossible to pull or push but if you are smart enough you will discover that is the surface of a rotating cylindrical room. Sliding the wall will allow you to discover the hole-entrance where to go inside the circular space and the same hole if rotated again will make you discover before the toilet, after the sink and finally the entrance to the love room; a soft nest equipped with bar and condoms. I don’t need to say more.”

Back in the store itself, chunky cuboids that continue all the way to the floor are used as changing rooms and others that almost reach the ground house the cashiers. “If you enter inside the extruded fitting room the space will be red like hot lava stored inside the slab,” said Gatti.

Spotlights are dotted across the rough grey floor on the lower level, illuminating the white extrusions above.

A staircase ascends through a large hole in the slab to the upper level, where the concept is flipped upside-down and the volumes protrude from the floor instead.

On this floor shoppers have to navigate over a series of stepped blocks all at different heights.

The metal rails displaying the garments span over the white blocks, lit-up by more spotlights installed in the undulating grey ceiling.

Profiles of the volumes are visible around the edge of the store’s exterior. Glass walls surround both storeys so the thick slab dividing them appears to float.

3Gatti Architecture Studio has come up with a few experimental interior designs. The firm has completed a store in Shanghai with clashing concrete staircases that looks like an MC Escher drawing, and an office where meeting rooms and a cafe are housed in a red faceted volume.

Here’s the text sent to us by the designers:

Volcanic Slab – D2C flagship store in Hangzhou

D2C is a multi brand platform where to buy the most interesting international fashion brands on the internet and now also on a physical space, a challenging physical space. Volcanic Slab is an existing building slab reshaped with volcanic energy to accommodate two floors of retail space.

The concept is as simple as this but creates a very intricate and complex labyrinthine space that will challenge your shopping experience.

This simple idea creates a very strong identity of the shop; even coming from the street is possible to see immediately the reshaped slab on the building façade. This squared skyline is not only a façade decoration but you will notice immediately from the glass window that is actually the shape of the slab that will continue inside the store.

Entering from the ground floor will allow you to be under the squared slab, you will walk between the extruded volumes that come from the ceiling creating different functions depending on their shape and size; fitting rooms, cashier room, clothes or swing hangers areas or just simple screens and labyrinth walls that coming from the top never touch the ground.

Taking the stairs will allow you to go through the slab and understand its simple logic and identity; upstairs you will be able to walk on top of the volcanic formations, challenged in a continuous up and down of steps and cubes that actually serves as display area of the fashion products or in the biggest cases as fitting room. If you enter inside the extruded fitting room the space will be red like hot lava stored inside the slab.

In case you want to go to the toilet the challenge ratio increases considerably: behind the door you will find a curved rubber-like wall impossible to pull or push but if you are smart enough you will discover that is the surface of a rotating cylindrical room. Sliding the wall will allow you to discover the hole-entrance where to go inside the circular space and the same hole if rotated again will make you discover before the toilet, after the sink and finally the entrance to the love room; a soft nest equipped with bar and condoms. I don’t need to say more.

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by 3Gatti Architecture Studio appeared first on Dezeen.