Hasta La Ideas

British fashion designer Paul Smith has extended his Albemarle Street store in London to include a room lined with dominoes and a patterned iron facade by 6a Architects (+ slideshow).

Paul Smith took over the building adjacent to his existing shop in London’s Mayfair district to create a new flagship store on the corner of Albemarle and Stafford streets, which opened last Friday.

Menswear, womenswear, accessories and furniture are all displayed across rooms of various sizes.

In some spaces garments are hung on simple metal rails and in others they are folded on wooden shelves.

Selected items are laid out on tables with sculptural wood tops and thick metallic stands.

Square wood tiles are used for the floor in the men’s zone, with ceramic tiles and timber planks in womenswear areas.

In the accessories room 26,000 dominoes line the walls, forming a pattern of scattered dots that looks like an encrypted code.

The dominoes are flipped over where used above shelves to provide a less chaotic background to display the accessories against.

Red picture frames and a blue staircase match the colourful upholstery of Paul Smith’s furniture.

London studio 6a Architects designed a bespoke cast iron store front based on Smith’s hand drawings.

Transparent cylindrical pods protrude through gaps in the iron panels and act as display cases for furniture pieces.

The basement has also be turned into a flexible gallery space and will host a series of exhibitions throughout the year.

Paul Smith has also designed the Maggie’s cancer care centre in his home town of Nottingham and reworked a coffee pot by late Danish designer Arne Jacobsen.

See more design by Paul Smith »
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Here’s the text sent to us by Paul Smith:

No.9 Albemarle Street – Paul Smith new flagship

The imposing facade incorporates Paul’s hand drawings in bespoke cast iron panels designed in conjunction with 6a architects.

The interior is decorated with an eclectic mix of stunning design pieces and intricate details, such as the 26,000 dominos covering the accessories room walls.

Significantly extending the pre-existing Paul Smith shop on the corner of Albemarle and Stafford Street, the new space expands into the neighbouring building and will sell clothing and accessories for men and women as well as a selection of furniture.

The basement has been converted into a flexible gallery space that will host the work of various artists throughout the year, starting with Walter Hugo’s portraits during Frieze art fair.

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by Paul Smith with 6a Architects 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.

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by Hiroko Shiratori appeared first on Dezeen.

One level of this London boutique designed by Studio Toogood is bright and minimal, while the other looks like a dark nightclub.

Studio Toogood divided the two-storey Browns Focus store so daywear is displayed in a clean, white space in the basement and eveningwear can be browsed on the darker upper level. “A brilliant-white basement represents daywear and a midnight-blue minimalist ground floor taps into the spirit of dressing for the evening,” said the studio.

Shoppers step up from street level to the upper floor or descend into the basement, which can be glimpsed through a floor-level window in the entrance.

Welded-steel panels, neon lighting and blue-tinted glass are all used on the upper floor to create an atmosphere more like an underground music venue.

Garment rails are formed from metal pipes suspended from the ceiling, bent into rectangles or hoops.

A midnight blue blob serves as the counter and a blue spun-metal disc with a light behind is attached to the wall above.

Surfaces in the basement are all white, only broken up by colourful woven rugs and stacks of iridescent boxes.

Changing room door handles appear to be made from scrunched-up pieces of paper set in plaster.

Studio founder Faye Toogood‘s furniture populates both floors, including vitrines made from metal lattices that are black upstairs and white downstairs.

The white mesh is also used for a seat and screens downstairs, alongside display counters built from piles of sawn wood lengths.

We’ve recently featured another Studio Toogood project: a fashion store that combines raw concrete and colourful fabrics.

Other recent retail interiors on Dezeen include an ochre-coloured boutique in Katowice, Poland, and a UK bakery with a magpie’s nest motif engraved into the counter.

Earlier this year we published a laundrette in Barcelona that also looks like a nightclub.

See more retail interiors »
See more design by Studio Toogood »
See more architecture and design in London »

The following text is from Studio Toogood:

Browns Focus by Studio Toogood

Browns Focus, one of the world’s leading destinations for newly discovered talent and emerging designers has been re-launched into a new and extended space with a new interior designed by Studio Toogood.

The space, set across two floors, is divided thematically – a brilliant-white basement, representing daywear, and a midnight-blue minimalist ground floor that taps into the spirit of dressing for the evening.

The club-like darkness of the ground floor has a postindustrial feel, with black rubber, welded steel-panelled displays, a graphic constructivist clothes rail and a sophisticated touch of blue-tinted glass.

By way of contrast, the area downstairs is glowing white and minimalist; walls of white mesh and rubber with a lacquered floor are offset by irregular display platforms, assembled from rubberised timber offcuts.

Both floors feature exclusive furniture designs by Faye Toogood, including her iconic mesh jewellery vitrines and a striking biomorphic cash-wrap counter. The result is a carefully balanced retail environment that complements and highlights the brand’s design-led fashion collections.

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Studio Toogood appeared first on Dezeen.

London firm Paul Crofts Studio has completed a bakery on a high street in Suffolk, UK, with a motif based on a magpie’s nest set into the douglas fir serving counter.

The Two Magpies Bakery in Southwold produces fresh bread and patisserie at the back of the shop every day and the kitchen can be seen through a window onto the seating area.

“The space is made up of a series of bespoke elements made from douglas fir finished in white lye, creating clean lines with a contemporary feel and a pared-back canvas on which to display the highly crafted products on sale,” said Paul Crofts Studio.

The birds-nest motif was created by illustrator Katharine Gorham and picked out in white resin. It’s repeated on the opposite side of the shop with criss-crossing white dowels supporting long shelves above the seating area, where a silver ring entangled in the sticks references the collecting habits of magpies.

White timber dowels also protrude from the wall behind the counter to accommodate a series of bespoke wooden serving boards, as well as alongside the window where they provide perches for displaying loaves to passersby.

“Warm wood, clean white detailing and a high level of craftsmanship combine to create an intimate and relaxed setting in which to enjoy the exceptional food on offer,” the studio added.

The rear wall of the shop is clad in overlapping wooden shingles in shades of grey and tables in the seating area have their legs dipped in black.

Cardboard luggage labels tied with string present information and pricing on the produce and the seasonal menu can be written on a brown paper roll hanging next to a blackboard behind the serving counter.

Paul Crofts Studio has previously completed a crêperie in west London with gingham and lace patterns screen-printed onto the tabletops.

See all our stories about patisserie design »
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by Paul Crofts Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

French designer Emmanuelle Moureaux has fitted out a Japanese spectacle shop with modular boxes in her signature colour blocks.

Located in the Mitsui Outlet Park in Iruma city near Tokyo, the Zoff eyewear shop by Emmanuelle Moureaux features identical rectangular units that have been stacked up to create display tables and counters, or mounted on the wall at various heights to form shelves.

Each one is coated in different hues, which Moureaux says represent “different snapshots from our daily lives, such as the magenta and yellow spreading endlessly in the field of tulips, the pale blue from the crystal clear lake, and the pink petals of cherry blossoms swaying in the wind.”

Two central display tables are made of more blocks in neutral tones and can be reconfigured as required.

Emmanuelle Moureaux has worked in Tokyo since 1996 and her work typically features repetitive elements in an assortment of bright, clear colours. She’s previously applied the style to a bank, a wedding dress and a stool with a transparent seat. See all our stories about design by Emmanuelle Moureaux.

We’ve also featured a former gallery in Paris that’s been converted into an optician’s shop, plus 3D-printed glasses by Ron Arad and others made of water buffalo horn. See all our stories about spectacles and shades.

Photos are by Daisuke Shima/Nacasa & Partners.

Here’s some more information from the designer:

Renewal project for the eyewear shop Zoff opened in the outlet shopping center -Mitsui Outlet Park Iruma.

The blue sky between buildings, the pockets of green in the park on the street corner, and the colorful glittering neon at night. These are what we capture during our everyday life in cities. Travelling also gives us different snapshots from our daily lives, such as the magenta and yellow spreading endlessly in the field of tulips, the pale blue from the crystal clear lake, and the pink petals of cherry blossoms swaying in the wind. These sceneries from our experience are captured into rectangular frame, and then rhythmically spread in the space to create a joyful and heartwarming store.

The captured pieces are modularized into blocks of 800mm x 160mm. These modules are then used to design displays, fixtures and mirrors.

Different heights of these rectangular blocks create rhythm in the space which gives a sense of playfulness. This changes the ordinary way of shop displays, which are often too systematic. The design has focused on flexibility, such as the movable display blocks, with the exception of wall mounted display, and the colors representing sceneries can be changed along with the seasons.

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Emmanuelle Moureaux appeared first on Dezeen.