The Spanish footwear brand Camper commissioned the renowned Japanese architectural firm to design its retail space on Barcelona’s Plaça de Catalunya, and a thorough renovation was carried out which clearly gave the leading role to curved ceramic tiles, creating a warm, pleasing, inviting atmosphere.
 
There is a strong tile tradition in both Spain and Japan, although each country prepares the material in its own way. Whereas Japanese tiles have a glassy shiny finish, Mediterranean tiles keep the material as it naturally is, showing its real texture. Kengo Kuma & Associates wanted the individuality of each shoe style for sale to come forth by being displayed separately. Hence the decision to use a system of niches, and to this end tile seemed a perfect element to experiment with. With this traditional material the firm came up with terracotta pieces that were very elemental in shape but which, when repeated in space, yielded something highly complex. Covering walls but also forming shelves, a cash register counter, and benches for customers to try on shoes, tiles are practically the only presence in the stores.
 
In the words of the architects, “it is exciting to us to use such an old traditional material and find new ways to craft it, to shape it, to combine its units creating different architectural elements that can solve the needs of the contemporary life.”

The firm P-M-A-A was commissioned to design a room that would evolve over time and transform, in Barcelona. The team conceived various pieces: a stair, a closet, a platform, and a cushion. The variable position of these elements led to a wide range of results within one same space that now is a room 3.5m high and 30m2 on plan, and with the same objects it is possible to obtain a large variety of rooms.

Two of the pieces take up an area of 2x2m, which is what a bed and a night table occupy, while the third (the stair) gives access to the bed, and the fourth and last, a cushion to recline and read on. This is only one of the set-ups that can be obtained within the space.

The architects designed each of the pieces to look different from the rest, in such a way that they could interact with other objects without a direct relationship within the set having to be established.
 

CuldeSac designed not only the actual store, but an entire strategy covering everything from the concept behind it to branding and communications. The flagship store was conceived as a space for encounters, not just for sales, hence the attractive shopwindow is set back and there’s a bench, inviting the passer-by to stop and stay. It was also thought out to a perfect spot for taking pictures to post in the social networks of young people, the group which the shop design, so urban and technological, is intended to attract.
 
Once inside the universe of the store, we find an explosion of stimuli and sensations in a versatile, constantly changing space where metal frameworks serve as display structures or relay messages, texts in motion accompanying customers as they move around under a ceiling of yellow rockwool, why not. The metal frames installed throughout the store can be completed with Tramex grilles, polycarbonate (translarent or yellow), or translucent PVC louvers, depending on the moment and the needs of the brand, but always maintaining the general design image.

After several renovations, the rear facade had been bricked up, so daylight only came in through the front. As the new project’s main objective was a brightly lit home, this was rectified. Inside, a false ceiling was eliminated, and the space below the roof that it hid was turned into a mezzanine floor, reached by means of a tier of benches rising from the ground level.
 
The most distinctive part of the dwelling is perhaps the pink bathroom, with its shower-cum-skylight. This bathroom is at the center of the floor plan and serves to connect three spaces that have no specified function, but can each be used for sleeping, lounging, or working, as the user wishes or needs.
 
Another source of natural light is the terrace, which had been reduced to a small patio. Behind the main volume now is a large terrace with a flowerbed and a room on the other side that work as visual and climate filters, and a fountain at center to cool the place in summer.

The project involved an open-plan loft in downtown Madrid, built late in the 20th century with a structure of loadbearing walls, timber pillars, and Catalan vaults.  It was renovated with the idea of building a house within a house. That is, the new dwelling would have its own structure, enclosures, and MEP/HVAC installations, making the process more like raising a new detached house altogether than like renovating an interior.

Slabs at different heights would accommodate the different uses required by the program, upstairs and downstairs alike. Holding the slabs in place is a frame that sometimes touches the floor and at other times hangs from the ceiling.

The components were to be as slender as possible, so the architects used white-lacquered 8x8cm metal profiles, and all installations are hidden inside them. The other materials – bare brick for loadbearing walls, transparent glass, frosted glass, and microcement – were selected to imitate the preexisting pinewood floors and the white walls.

The new flagship store in Albemarle Street in London’s Mayfair has been designed by Casper Mueller Kneer Architects, renown for their work for the arts and fashion  for clients such as White Cube Gallery, the Barbican Art Centre and collaborations with fashion house Céline.

The store, which has 233 m2 of space, is set over ground and lower ground floors and offers a sequence of spaces flowing into each other, creating zones with distinct spatial and material qualities. 

Simple geometric forms structure the spaces: at ground level, two semi-circular metal screens with coloured aluminium inlays provide the hanging rails as well as visual shelter, and at the lower floor the main space is shaped in the form of a triangle. 

Smaller ante-rooms with deliberately odd geometries are located off these main spaces. Two staircases allow a playfully loop of discovery through the store.

Three design elements define the space – the custom designed terrazzo flooring with pink and white marble insets, the open grid ceiling which creates a continuous, luminous horizon, and the dark and heavy Cornish mineral clay render, which is applied to all wall and ceiling surfaces.

Furniture pieces are custom-designed by Casper Mueller Kneer and fine artist Michael Elmgreen and the store will also offer a dedicated space for curated video artwork. 

Under the imposing skyscrapers of Hudson Yards – the largest real estate development to go up recently in New York – is Little Spain, a new and unprecedented space that celebrates Spanish food, launched by the popular chef José Andrés and the Adrià brothers. The project, designed by the studio Capella García Arquitectura, recreates the atmosphere of a traditional market where each stand offers a different culinary product. Artists like Javier Mariscal, Oscar Mariné, Sergio Mora, and Mikel Urmeneta, who represent the creative potential of our country, have also participated in the design of the space. Cosentino has contributed by highlighting the quality and innovative character of the ‘Spain Brand,’ using its surfaces to show their newest applications in interior design and professional hospitality. The brand’s range of products, available in a broad palette of colors and textures, allows addressing a variety of needs and settings. The ultra- compact surfaces of Dekton have been used in colors like Entzo, Makai, Kelya, and Aura 15; while the Silestone countertops were chosen in tones such as White Platinum, Calacatta Gold, and Blanco City. Cosentino has supplied almost 700 m2 of material, including a spectactular bar in Pearl Jasmine that is 3 cm thick.

Creating a virtual world through the poetic use of materials was Valerio Olgiati’s intention in designing this flagship store in the city of Miami for the French high-end fashion brand Céline.
Such virtuality has to do with the manipulation of the space, which the practice of the Swiss architect has distributed in two distinct areas connected by a pitched stairway of sculptural nature: an upper level for shoes, handbags, and ready-to-wear clothes; and a lower floor configured as a showroom, with pyramidal forms and pillars that suggest the idea of a canopy.
 

In order to create this introverted virtual world, much has been made to depend on the atmosphere produced by the extensive use of the dominant material: marble. From the pillars to the pedestals by way of the walls and floors, all the architectural elements of the shop are clad in a slightly polished stone that spreads
all over like an abstract beige carpet. Plaques of very lightly veined sky-blue Brazilian marble are embedded in it, as
in a mosaic of large pieces or a work of marquetry executed in stone. The same sheets clad walls and ceilings. The result is a geometric bichromie that is perceived as sophisticated but also a bit unsettling.

Studio Razavi has renovated a 16th-century apartment located in the well-preseved Renaissance quarter of Lyon, France.

Abandoned for over sixty years, the apartment was in a ruinous state when a young scientist decided to have it renovated and turned into an ‘introspective space,’ conducive to reflection and reclusion. While celebrating certain original features, the architects chose to reduce the preexisting decoration to a minimum, plastering all the walls with a pale gray finish that strikes a contrast with the tones of the furnishings and the kitchen cabinets of MDF boards, which are painted a sea-green.

As a counterpoint to the minimalist aesthetic, arches here and there break the apartment’s overall rectilinear geometry and square proportions, forming doorways, cupboards, display niches, and radiator covers. The old features that were preserved include two large stone fireplaces, the oak-beam ceiling, and a clear height exceeding four meters.

A spiral staircase leads to the entrance, where a foyer precedes the main space, which combines the dining room, the kitchen, and the living room. Completing the domestic program are a bathroom, a single room, and a dressing room.
The furniture pieces in the living room are few and far between, just a glass table, some chairs, and a sofa, which helps to seal the calm of the place. The preserved original elements lord over everything else.

Marcos Cortes Lerín renovates an office space for Sino-Europe Center for Architecture & Development, proposing an alternative atmosphere that stands out from the conventional office types.

A series of bubbles are arranged independently throughout the floor space, dividing the existing space and creating circulation routes around which workspaces emerge, interacting with them. These capsules enclose offices and meeting rooms of different sizes that maintain a dialogue between interior and exterior thanks to the intermediate areas. The atmosphere is fluid, flexible, and adaptable, achieving a dynamic space open for a wide variety of activities.

The separation between the interior spaces of the bubbles and their exterior is materialized through a double-skin membrane, bright on the outside and translucid on the inside, supported by transparent bones that function as structure. This experimentation creates a sensation of weightlessness formed by air and light, and permits illuminating the capsules while visually isolating them from the exterior, revealing only blurred forms of what is closer to them. Moreover, the changes in the color of the floor subtly mark out the spaces, stressing the area of influence of the bubbles.

Next to the office, a new exhibition area is designed with a different language, and goes for a static approach rather than the dynamic one chosen for the office: from a space that is discovered through its circulation routes and activities to another one that openly asserts its presence. A sober atmosphere avoids distracting the attention from the items displayed. Six tables designed to hold exhibition material hang from the ceiling, floating in the space.

Collaborators: Ma Cheng + Chen Yun + Hui Gu
Contractor: Huai’ian Heyi Decoration
Engineering Co., Ltd.