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Architects: Fumiko Takahama Architects
- Area: 135 m²
- Year: 2019
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Photographs:Daici Ano
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Manufacturers: AutoDesk, Chaos Group, Vectorworks, AGC, Beal International s.a./n.v., Daiko, KANSAI PAINT, Maxray, Robert McNeel & Associates
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Lead Architects: Fumiko Takahama
Text description provided by the architects. JINS Tokyu Hands Ikebukuro Store is a branch store of an eyewear brand JINS at Tokyu Hans Department Store in Ikebukuro. JINS is a big eyewear chain with over 500 stores around the world, and their regular store designs are composed of wooden toolbox-like cabinets.The challenge was to propose a unique spatial experience simultaneously maintaining the association with their regular stores by using the existing furniture modules as well as using wood.
The solution we found is simple. We chose wooden pallets that are flat transport structure normally used in logistics as the base of the space components and derived all types of furniture from them. In this way, on one hand, the furniture gives the casualness and familiarity of mass-produced product to the store space and creates friendly and accessible atmosphere for men and women of all ages. On the other hand, the pallet-derived set of furniture in the warehouse-like space evoke a narrative of the eyewear products being transported with the pallets and displayed for sale on them.
This fictional narrative between the products and the furniture makes the existence and the meaning of the furniture strong, and it plays an important role to make the customers’ purchasing experience special and unique. The pallets of island type furniture are stacked on top of each other slightly displaced deliberately so that they look like they are roughly stacked in a warehouse. At the same time, the pallets are finished with highly glossy urethane coating, and the bottom pallet is without deck boards not to look too heavy as well as to keep floor clearance for easy cleaning.
These good consideration for customers and sales staffs shows that the it is a thought through piece of furniture with quality. In the same manner, wall type furniture, sofa benches, and mirrors are created by adjusting their shapes to satisfy each function, while inheriting the gene and context of pallet. Also, the walls and floors are painted with random patterned graphics that look like pieces of wallpaper stripped of at a construction site, and the company name and the sequential numbers are stenciled on every piece of furniture with original typography to give the impression of mass-produced product.
The accumulation of these above-mentioned fine details gives the furniture clean and elegant appearance that blends with the casualness of pallet and plywood, while complementing the world of the narrative using pallets as display in a warehouse. We believe the innovative part of our interior design is that the context of pallet, a mass-produced standardized product which already used widely in a different circumstances, meets a retail use of eyewear products and, as a result, the products tell a narrative and appeal to the customers’ emotion.
