Project Name
HARMAYShenzhen
Posted in
Retail, Design, Interior Design
Location
Excellence INTOWN Shopping Centre
Shenzhen
China
Area (sqm)
485
Client
HARMAY
Completed
July 2022
Detailed Information
Project NameHARMAYShenzhenPosted inRetail, Design, Interior DesignLocation
Excellence INTOWN Shopping Centre
Shenzhen
China
Area (sqm)485ClientHARMAYCompletedJuly 2022

Commissioned to design the new store for Chinese cosmetics and fragrances retail brand HARMAY in Shenzhen, Shanghai-based practice AIM Architecture embraced an industrial-inspired, sci-fi-inflected aesthetic that offers customers an immersive retail experience. Enveloped in a whimsical tangle of metal utility pipes that turn into product displays as they snake through the space, the store’s streamlined industrial language is a reflection of the brand’s “warehouse culture”, a commitment to clean-cut, muted and utilitarian retail environments in opposition to any sort of stylization or ornamentation, as well as a nod to Shenzhen’s industrial legacy which saw a sleepy market town exponentially grow into a megacity of more than 12 million people in the span of 50 years.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

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.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

Photography by Wen Studio.

A Cosmetics Store in Shenzhen is Designed as a Whimsical Tangle of Ductwork

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