TORAFU ARCHITECTS

We designed ”TAMIYA PLAMODEL FACTORY TOKYO”, TAMIYA’s new flagship for modeling culture. The site is a six-tenant site on the first floor of the Shintora Yasuda Building, a newbuild across the street from the existing store. It faces an ample open space on the sidewalk along the main street. The flagship shop needed to be the cultural initiator, communicating the culture of modeling not only to the existing modeling fans but also to the world, to expand the community.

Going into the main entrance, greeted by the large twin stars of TAMIYA, visitors pass through the sales floor and into the event space “MODELERS SQUARE” at the left rear. The right side has a cafe area featuring a 1/1 scale car model. The cafe area connected to the office entrance is a cultural zone that gathers a wide range of people. The 4m-high, 100m-long shelf with approximately 6,000 items goes zigzag in the vast store along the sidewalk, stimulating visitors' curiosity like a hobby room while arousing nostalgia for your local model shop. The meandering product shelf has cut-out windows leading the gaze to the end of the shop. The windows frame the scenery, and the visitors are guided to the rear of the shop by seeing it through the windows.
The steel rack product shelves allow easy rearrangement, enabling a variety of displays from showcases to hanging racks. This modular system, the element and concept of the store were planned to be the role model of other stores worldwide with different locations and sizes.

The topmost large shelves store stock and display TAMIYA's iconic box art, creating excitement that can only come from a model shop. The beauty of box art is enhanced by the light gray shelves, reminiscent of the surfacers used in the model painting processes. Materials such as gray MDF, particle board, and rubber chip flooring, is used to divide areas to fit the characteristics and functions of each area. From the street, people can get a glimpse of the gallery wall exhibit, which utilizes the large wall at the back, through the openings in the shelves. The layered line lighting running in the store, evocative of runners, fills up the store with soft light. We picked up the key visuals by Francesca Ghermandi for the signature of new flagship.
The newly born store, with its bright and white atmosphere, has both the character of a museum and an exuberance created by the sheer volume of goods.

Juxtaposing tradition and innovation, the store was planned to be where one can sense a new path for TAMIYA.