likeuu Concept Exploration Center
likeuu Concept Exploration Center
Studio 10
YEAR
2024
LOCATION
Beijing, China
CATEGORY
Retail Interiors
Text description provided by architect.
The core concept behind the design of the likeuu Concept Exploration Center is deeply rooted in the exploration of adolescent personality development and its characteristics.
Drawing from Nietzsche's belief that adolescence is a crucial period for forming an independent personality and self-awareness, the center's design encourages teenagers to explore, experience, and question their identity and the world around them.
The space design is a projection of this "ideal personality" trait and, through a multi-sensory experience involving visual and tactile elements, aims to help teenagers connect with their environment, sparking their curiosity and deep thinking about the relationship between appearance and essence.
The project emphasizes exploration and dialectical thinking, focusing on the dualities of the world.
Concepts such as inside and outside, softness and hardness, stability and change, reality and illusion, smoothness and angularity, restriction and freedom are articulated through materials, forms, and structures, bringing these abstract, fluid ideas into the physical space.
The layout features open storefront windows and entrances at both ends, while the sides are solid walls. Enclosed spaces like fitting rooms and storage areas emerge from these walls, wrapped in semi-transparent tensioned membranes. This design allows the volumes and edges of the boxes to be faintly visible from the open space.
The membrane also creates numerous semi-transparent, irregular transition spaces between the "boxes" and the walls, which can be used for displays.
The outer membrane is soft and ambiguous, contrasting sharply with the hard, defined walls of the inner core objects.
This contrast between the solid and the void encourages contemplation about appearance versus substance, and deepens the understanding of the dialectical relationship between restriction and freedom in personal growth.
Physical forms and materials are also paired in a defamiliarized manner.
Exhibition walls, display tables, and column base appear soft, rounded, and flowing like fabric, contrasting with their actual hard fiberglass gypsum composition.
The textures of the surfaces on these objects, both delicate and rough, create a strong contrast, illustrating the complexity and contradictions of the physical world and the potential disjunction between sensory perception and cognition.
The space uses an overall beige tone to highlight the geometric essence of objects and the colorful products on display.
The brand's VI color occasionally peeks out from behind the semi-transparent membrane or from a corner of the display table and wall, acting as a subtle "hint" to stimulate curiosity and a desire to explore.
To balance the psychological and emotional needs of teenagers for internal self-awareness and external connections with family and friends, a "teenage fitting room" concept has been introduced in the store.
Unlike traditional fitting rooms that directly connect to open public areas, these fitting rooms are further separated from the public areas by non-full-height exhibition walls, ensuring independence and privacy.
The space behind these free-standing walls forms semi-private transitional areas where companions and parents can rest, encouraging their interaction with the teenager during the fitting process.
