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Interior Designers: Each Design
- Area: 108 m²
- Year: 2024
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Photographs:Edward Shi
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Manufacturers: FLOS, VitrA
Text description provided by the architects. Japanese eyewear legends Hakusan Megane has set the standard in quality and design since its original inception in 1883. The brand is known for their iconic silhouettes and creation of classic shapes unique to the brand. For their first store of mainland China, Each Design got a opportunity to cooperation with Hakusan Megane team and design the store for them in Zhang Yuan, Shanghai.
Because of the long history of the brand, Hakusan Megane team hoped that the new space in Shanghai can inherit the atmosphere of their stores in Japan. Therefore, how to make the new space that maintains the vibe of the stores in Japan but also have some uniqueness of the new location became a challenge of this project. To solve this challenge, Each Design Team followed the display logic of Hakusan Megane store in Shibuya Tokyo, and creatively transformed the eyeglass temples structure into a functional joint, combined with the traditional wood mortise and tenon technique, which makes the space see innovation in the classic.
The location of the project – Zhang Yuan, which is the most famous garden of Shanghai at the end of the 19th century. Nowadays, it has been endowed with new commercial and cultural values after protective restoration in recent years. Inspired by this location, Each Design Team carefully make the selection of time-preserved or recycled materials rather than a fresh, shiny texture. Attempted to make the space engage in a dialogue with the history of the site and the brand. The combination of row iron panels and old elm complete the above narrative. By using the material that we carefully choose, there is no conflict between the cold and hard of the metal and the warm and soft of the wood. They are integrated by the oxidation traces on the surface of the material under the action of the time.
In the historical protection building, the concept of design is expressed more subtly and delicately. The focus of the project is concentrated on the display fixture system and furniture. The concept revolves around "glasses" and "craftsmanship" according to the brand attributes of Hakusan Megane Store. Each team noticed that "hinges" and "piles" are usually indispensable structural elements of glasses. This structure, which connects two elements and allows relative rotation between them, can be adjusted to different joint in space, thus becoming a set of highly integrated design language.
Beside the details structure we reformed from eyeglass hinges, the use of wood material of the display fixtures fit the brand's craft attributes. The old elm panel were salvaged from old wooden architecture. Instead of gluing the panels together, hundreds of small panels are built into tables and cabinets in the space by using a traditional mortise and tenon finger joint technique. We appreciate the wood factory we cooperate with, which is still willing to complete the manual production at the moment of stressing efficient production.
In order to recede the heaviness of wooden fixture, we didn't use screws and intricate structure, but borrow the finger-joint technique to use on 8mm thick solid iron panels. This allowed us to create a lightweight shelving system against the wall. In this new location of Hakusan Megane, we continue using the water-corrugated glass for the shelf which can see in other locations of this brand. The mottled shadows of the water-corrugated glass under the light also etherealize the space.
