Principle use: SHOP
Credit: Lighting design: BRANCH LIGHTING DESIGN
Building site: Kyoto Takashimaya
Total floor area: 73.59m2
Design period: 2022.2-2023.4
Construction period: 2023.4-2023.5
Photo: Courtesy of Aesop, Norihito Yamauchi
Website:http://www.aesop.com/
The interior plan of the Kyoto Takashimaya store for Aesop, an Australian skin care brand. The site is a section with a frontage of 9m and a depth of 7m, where both sides of the facade have structural columns.
We are inspired by Jiro Taniguchi's aspect of capturing daily scenes, which is expressed delicately in his Manga ”Aruku Hito (A Walking Man).” So, our focus is on the street scenery in Kyoto. The shop opens in Autumn when the city is strewn with colorful autumn leaves. On streets with ginkgo trees, vibrant golden leaves blanket the ground like a carpet, transforming the city’s appearance. This scenery provided us with the idea to cover the floor of the shop with the golden cashmere carpet reminiscent of ginkgo leaves in autumn. To make a good contrast with the floor, the walls and ceiling are covered with low saturation color, which gives calmness differentiated from the bright common area. The product shelves are made of laminated lauan plywood stained in a dark tone reminiscent of the thick trunks of ginkgo trees. We set the mullions back to make the horizontal lines of the products stand out. The brass adopted in some parts of the fixtures, such as the sink, shines brighter in the golden space.
The rounded corners of the columns and walls, the rounded brass sides protruding from the central sink front, the mirror on the ensuite sink, the circular bench, and the semicircular-shaped niche in the infusion chamber for the perfume experience- these organic lines give the space a soft impression.
In contrast to the monochrome common areas, we used vibrant colors to create a deep impression of space, aiming at a store that remains in people's memories like a scene that captures a moment in the season.
