Yusuke Sek

Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto

Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku

Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto 

Yusuke Seki

ARCHITECTS
Yusuke Seki

LEAD ARCHITECT
Yusuke Seki

CONTRACTOR 
And S

CLIENT
Bang&olufsen

PHOTOGRAPHS
Tomooki Kengaku

YEAR
2019

LOCATION
Kyoto, Japan  

CATEGORY
Store 

Over the course of three months, this project transformed two floors of a former clothing store in Kyoto into a retail environment for the Danish audio equipment company Bang and Olufsen.

Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku
Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku

The pop-up store filled a temporal gap between the departure of the clothing brand and the building’s demolition, effectively giving a new lease on life to the edifice.

The display tables were designed by Yusuke Seki specially for this space. The concrete blocks weighing them down were not placed there, but rather cast on site.

Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku
Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku

For each, four pieces of wood were first assembled into a mold, then filled with concrete. Upon the concrete hardening, two sides of the mold were removed, leaving the remaining pieces to serve as table legs.

The design was an occasion to grapple with an issue that had long been on the designer’s mind: how might one imagine a new use for the wood used in creating concrete, which is otherwise thrown away?

Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku
Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku

To utilize the mold as both constructive element and furniture component was one way to get around this problem.

The wood used for this purpose was tsuga, a relatively expensive material that is often seen in Japanese shrine architecture, thus underlining the new value given to this byproduct.

Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku
Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku

Moreover, the removed mold elements, rather than being thrown out, were subsequently displayed in the store as a narrative trace of the construction process.

A concern with recycling materials and minimizing waste also informs the design of the space.

Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku
Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku

Conscious of the store’s temporary nature, Yusuke Seki has strived to reuse as much of the original substance as possible and to achieve maximum effect with minimal means.

The walls and ceiling have been left in a state of mid-demolition, with photographs installed in the cavities left by where shelves once were.

Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku
Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku

In the back part of the first floor, the addition of white gravel, a reference to a common practice seen in Jinja shrines around Kyoto, transforms this part of the space into a sort of sacred compound – mirroring how the experience of listening to music can at once be a spiritual one.

A single application of white paint on the wall on the first floor serves to unify the two disparate halves of the first floor with a simple gesture.On the second floor, the removal of a single pane of glass has similarly transformed a formerly inaccessible atrium into another space for reflection.

Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku
Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku
Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku


Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku
Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
© Tomooki Kengaku


Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
Fist Floor Plan
Bang&Olufsen Pop-Up Store Kyoto
Second Floor Plan

Yusuke Sek
Yusuke Sek
703 3-27-9 Gohongi Meguro-ku, Tokyo, Zip 153-0053 Japan