Carol Arbex Store

Carol Arbex Store
Cortesia de RUÍNA

CAROL ARBEX STORE

Ruína

ARCHITECTS
Ruína

PROJECT TEAM
Julia Ferreira Peres e Victoria Braga

CLIENTS
Loja Carol Arbex

MANUFACTURERS
Manufacturers: AutoDesk, Adobe, Delidecor Cortinas e Persianas, Espaleti Serralheria Artística, Manoel Messias - WMS Marcenaria, Office, Pedras Bellas Artes, R&A Pinturas, Robson Soares, Trimble

PHOTOGRAPHS
Lauro Rocha

AREA
17 m²

YEAR
2020

LOCATION
São Paulo, Brazil

CATEGORY
Detail, Decoration & Ornament, Retail Interiors

Carol Arbex’s exhibition space and store renovation project was developed based on the premise of translating the brand's identity into a spatial experience.

Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha
Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha

Elements and materialities were selected to suggest a subtle path and provide a personal and subjective narrative — built by the user's encounter with space.

Within a space of 17m2, the experience is divided into three moments: when entering through the main access, the furniture in carpentry — which includes the administrative, financial, and stock program — then, followed by the clothes rack that displays the collection’s clothes.

In the end, a large mirror sets up a sculptural element of contemplation where the user, clothing, and space are reflected.

Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha
Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha

Beyond the concept, space should still answer a very pragmatic demand: to be able to accommodate, at different times, four types of programs: store, showroom, stock, and dining room.

This diversity of uses required us to think of elements as devices that enable the expansion and contraction of space — a mobile countertop that fits the furniture in carpentry, clothes rack that go up and down according to their needs, materializing multiple scenarios in the same room.

The furniture in carpentry has two opening configurations: folding door with built-in rail and built-in mat — allowing that during the use, all doors open fully and enter the furniture, preventing them from occupying projection space in the environment.

Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha
Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha

The design of the furniture was designed in such a way as to avoid a monolithic effect and guarantee softness and lightness from its elements — the corrugated glass door that encloses the office area, as well as the void that supports the mirror, shelf, and mobile countertop.

The clothes racks were supposed to bring subtlety and dynamics to space, and for that, the brushed steel pieces were curved in a manual calendar machine, configuring elements of greater organicity and giving movement to the displayed pieces of clothing.

In order to reduce costs — but to still be able to work with exquisite materials — stones discarded by a local marble company were used to compose the foundation, handles of the clothes racks, and support surface for a mobile countertop.

Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha
Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha

The larger blocks of yellow sandstone were drilled deep enough for the vertical supports of the clothes racks (Ø38mm tubular profile) to be fitted and fixed — in a way that the weight of the block acts as an anchorage for them.

Smaller blocks were sculpted, sanded, and drilled, serving as handles for the mobile clothes racks — whose system works with fixed pulleys and counterweights.

The marble crema ivory plate that was used was totally irregular and for this reason, it was cut inside the intact perimeter of the piece, and then fixed on the structure of the mobile countertop of the store.

Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha
Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha

During the design and execution process, we understand that the production and disposal chain for marble

— whose recycling of waste is only possible for certain types of stone and under processes of intense machining

Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha
Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha

— presents other ways of reuse in architecture, with diverse scales and uses from small manufactures, technically more accessible.


Carol Arbex Store
Cortesia de RUÍNA
Carol Arbex Store
Cortesia de RUÍNA
Carol Arbex Store
Cortesia de RUÍNA
Carol Arbex Store
Cortesia de RUÍNA
Carol Arbex Store
Cortesia de RUÍNA
Carol Arbex Store
Cortesia de RUÍNA


Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha
Carol Arbex Store
© Lauro Rocha
Carol Arbex Store
Cortesia de RUÍNA
Carol Arbex Store
Cortesia de RUÍNA


Carol Arbex Store
Floor Plan
Carol Arbex Store
Planta Original


Carol Arbex Store
Diagram
Carol Arbex Store
Diagram
Carol Arbex Store
Diagram
Carol Arbex Store
Cortesia de RUÍNA


Carol Arbex Store
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Carol Arbex Store
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Carol Arbex Store
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Carol Arbex Store
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