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Architects: External Reference Architects
- Area: 5500 m²
- Year: 2022
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Manufacturers: Piedra paloma
Text description provided by the architects. Floor -1: Tech Garage. Welcomes visitors with a digital landscape, a humanized digital nature in which to immerse themselves in the latest technological advances for the consumer goods sector. The design project for this floor is based on the idea that technology is part of nature, and is connected to the human being and their activities. This is why the user immerses themselves in a landscape where digital and physical dimensions integrate to generate an unprecedented experience.
The concept is inspired by an optimistic technology, connected to nature, not alien to the human being but evolving with it, increasing its capabilities and tending towards an ecology where nature and human activities will coexist in a beneficial balance for the world. External Reference, based on this concept, has developed and built a 3D printed marine coral landscape with pure.tech material. This artificial nature is permeated by a programmable dynamic lighting system that animates and changes the space as if it were real and integrates with the artistic installation and exhibitors. JogoTech screens generate an augmented reality that enhances the user's shopping experience by offering 100% digital opportunities in the store.
Ground Floor: Self-Care Lab. The ground floor represents the main entrance from Gran Vía, where two digital shop windows integrate with the existing arches through a metallic origami system. They are dynamic exhibition kaleidoscopes that focus attention on artistic digital images. From Calle Clavel, two other digital shop windows welcome visitors, guiding them through the other entrance. Here, they enter through a spectacular 3D printed structure that highlights direct access to the upper floors of the gastronomic space.
It is a structure of intertwined arches that weaves a three-dimensional mesh that shows the existing context and, at the same time, frames all the directional accesses of the floor. In this cosmetics floor, External Reference has imagined that characters from the classical world cross time and space, colonizing the building that formerly housed the Hotel Roma. These figures, transformed into pink statues, have undergone space-time deformations that manifest themselves with pixelations, used as bases to display the product. These giants interact with the parametric topographies of the false ceiling, where some classical decorative details of the building have been reinterpreted, transforming them into complex geometries based on discrete elements, generating retro-illuminated surfaces on the ceiling. The statues are an ephemeral element of the space that is designed to accommodate different artistic installations, which at the same time serve as exhibitors and change with each season. The entire perimeter of the floor is characterized by an exhibition infrastructure that absorbs and softens the aesthetic variety of each brand, with the aim of showcasing and emphasizing WOW's own identity.
Floor 1: Fashion Hub. Native digital fashion brands. This floor, whose design is a direct interpretation of clothing as a second skin, is conceived as a dress, a garment that is experienced from within, and that dresses this floor, creating a theatrical backdrop for the brands that will exhibit their designs here. The image of this floor is temporary and, like fashion, depends on the seasons. Nothing is forever, everything is changing: the contents of the light boxes or the screens that make up the perimeter of the entire store, the graphics, the videos, the furniture, the ceiling... they are all elements of the ephemeral and ever-changing world of this floor.
Floor 2: Fashion Hub. Established fashion brands. On this floor, External Reference recreates one of the most iconic rituals of fashion for WOW, transforming the store into a fashion show. The entire space changes through a digital layer that animates and generates dynamism. It is designed as a large stage where the walls are dressed with luminous fiber optic curtains, the stands on both sides integrate an exhibition system for clothing and accessories, and the floor responds interactively in the runway area.
Floor 3: Urban District. The inspiration that Carmelo Zappulla and his team have brought to this floor draws from the aesthetics of sports, street, and urban culture. An independent structure organizes the commercial space through three bays: one for circulation and two for exhibition, generating a space that is technical, flexible, and dynamic, covered by a metallic skin that integrates programmable lighting systems. The prefabricated metal system constructs a structural object formed by horizontal and vertical elements that support the store's exhibition devices. It allows for total customization depending on the exhibited brands, providing the possibility for the space to constantly change. This structural system allows for the weaving of ruled surfaces on the ceiling through intertwined cables.
Floor 4: Home Boulevard. To break away from the stereotype of stores that simulate a domestic environment to showcase home products, External Reference proposes an urban journey, recreating the streets of a city from which to spy on the interior of houses through their windows. The aim is to materialize a real world, filtered through the aesthetics of the Metaverse, theatricalizing a game situation where reality becomes pixelated. Avatars from this parallel world are moving, wandering the streets of the floor, carrying benches on which there are product displays. In this way, the architecture studio wants to make this ephemeral nature of the space more evident, which will change and physically transform. In this area, the digital layer animates the urban landscape, making its boundary fade away through the use of physical deformations or glitches.
