Located inside an upscale commercial development in the city’s Futian district, the store occupies an elongated 75-metre-long space whose tunnel-like sensation is intentionally amplified by an intricate network of galvanized metal pipes that meander across the store’s length. Beginning from the street entrance, where a bundle of smaller and larger vertical pipes lining the upper part of the storefront draws you inside, AIM Architecture’s convoluted ductwork playfully guides customers deeper into the space: from the front section where the pipes are sliced open to serve as product displays in the form of shelves or vitrines, to a middle section populated by mobile carts, all the way to a warehouse-like section in the back.

Lined in the brand’s signature green tone, the product displays add refreshing splashes of colour in the otherwise monochromatic grey-hued interior which is dominated by concrete and metal surfaces, as do the bright-orange cables lining the walls in graphic linear patterns. The result is an Alice-in-wonderland sensation, if Alice hadn’t fallen down a rabbit hole but rather a street hatch that leads into the mechanical bowels of some otherworldly industrial facility producing next-generation beauty products.