ATELIER XUK

The flag-shop of CUIFOTANG is located at the city center of Wuxi, It occupies 2 floors of a typical residential building right next to one of the main commercial street of the city. With 10 years history since the last renovation, the facility and the design of the shop is becoming obsolete.

In the design, we started with analysis of how merchandise could be displayed. We found two polarized yet extremely interesting typologies how objects could be exhibited, one is the museum typology where objects are presented as the center of the exhibition space, and the other is the supermarket typology, where objects are presented as pixels contributing to the overall commercial atmosphere.

We then applies the two typologies to two floors of the projects, we found that by juxtaposition of the two typologies in the design, we not only satisfied client`s requirement about the capacity of the shop, but created two different shopping spaces for customers to experience. The museum typology of the 1st floor gives customers an opportunity to withdraw from daily life to contemplate and to build up a personal connection to Jade, while the supermarket typology brings customers back and stimulate their desire to buy.

By moving most of the display shelves to the 2nd floor, we also created a versatile space at the 1st floor. Many public or semi-public events can then take place in this space. To bring this concept to another level, we gives the 1st floor a fairly transparent and easily to access facade, as a result, the whole 1st floor can open up to the street, and the shop itself can then transform into a stage, a window of communication and advertisement to the city.