The RIBA Shanghai Windows project saw nine UK architects transform store fronts in the landmark Xintiandi shopping district in Shanghai. Stephen Cousins reports
An ethereal artificial waterfall comprising 30,000 metres of translucent cord; an alien-inspired formation of shiny crystalline metal; a multi-coloured vinyl drum you can get lost inside; and a wall of faceted blocks that grin at you like characters from a corny cartoon.
It might sound like the stuff of dreams, or hallucinogenic visions, but this is RIBA Shanghai Windows 2015, a major public architecture exhibition, held over two months this Spring, that saw nine chartered UK architects take over retail windows in Shanghai’s most famous shopping plaza, Shanghai Xintiandi.
Organised by RIBA London, Shanghai Xintiandi and the Culture and Education Section of the British Consulate-General, and now in its third year, the project coincided with Shanghai Fashion Week, giving UK architects the opportunity to revamp the stores of local fashion brands and demonstrate their skills to a design-savvy Chinese audience.
Given that China’s rapidly growing middle class is set to propel significant retail expansion over the next 10 years, according to a report by investment firm CBRE, practices had a rare opportunity to showcase their talents to a national audience through coverage in Chinese press and media.
Fountain Flow
- Architects: Atelier I-N-D-J and CTHM
- Structure: Burohappold Engineering
- Client: Gourmet Pyramid Group and Fountain Restaurant
The clients’ brief to re-invigorate a tired-looking restaurant facade, as well as create a strong counter focal point to a major fountain in the courtyard below, posed a challenge on the minimal £5,000 budget. The resulting installation is surprisingly extravagant, a cascade of thousands of strands of translucent cord – 30,000 metres in total – that spills out from the restaurant’s upper story towards the fountain, refracting and reflecting a mixture of natural and artificial light to create a dream-like, shimmering impression across the facade.
Christopher Taylor, partner at CTHM told ADF:
“The challenge of creating something powerful that could comfortably hold its own within a space dominated by other restaurants and the fountain itself was hugely difficult. To create a more human scale, and a dream-like atmosphere, we chose to treat the fountain square as a room, and the installation as a surreal piece of furniture or dressing inside it.”
The project provided the UK consultants with a valuable insight into Chinese contracting methods. The entire installation had to be carried out over just two days in the early hours of the morning, when the square was closed to pedestrians. The UK team carefully calculated and illustrated the precise process of installation to the local contractor, Talent Construction, via a simple methodology statement and a clear health and safety risk assessment. However, the cost implications of using a cherry picker and the unforeseen arrival of a tropical storm, meant the contractor decided to adopt a more traditional, risqué method of installation, utilising bamboo scaffolding and head torches. “The cost of labour in China is so much cheaper than hiring machinery, so around a dozen men were able to erect the installation in one night for half the price of a cherry picker,” said Taylor. Fountain Flow remains in place at the courtyard and is something of a haven for photographers and the Chinese public, who are impressed by its sheer size and the way it reflects and refracts light throughout the day.
Pret A Portrait
- Architects: Draisci Studio
- Client: Bacodes
‘Eye-catching’ is the appropriate term to describe this vividly coloured wall of cascading faceted blocks, some of which are designed to resemble grinning faces complete with cut out smiles, and glasses sold by the fashion brand Bacodes. The title plays with the idea that framing the eyes with glasses transforms every face into a portrait, while the bold orange and yellow blocks aim to inspire a sense of joy, happiness and surprise in shoppers.
Francesco Draisci, founder of Draisci Studio, told ADF:
“We wanted to create a physical representation of the brand, whose logo is a hexagon, and at same time reference the enormous potential of Chinese production by multiplying one item many times over, in a modular system.”
The blocks are folded, flat packed, laminated cardboard sheets, assembled one of top of the other to create the new temporary facade. Draisci Studio was designing in London and the project was being delivered in Shanghai, so focusing on one repeatable element helped remove complications during design and assembly. Nevertheless, not everyone was smiling when it came to assembling the wall, said Draisci:
“We had just two days to erect the system. Almost three quarters of wall went up on the first day, but the next morning we were dismayed to find that everything had collapsed. The modules had been stuck using a very low tack system. On the second day I took a more hands on approach, checking every single module myself to ensure the installation would stay up for the full two months of the project.”
He added: “Unlike in the UK where we describe absolutely everything upfront for the contractor to take onboard, the way people work in China is more based on improvisation and the understanding of the moment. It’s a way of doing things I’ve seen in other parts of the world, which though sometimes frustrating, can sometimes lead to very positive and surprising design results.”
The Chinese response to Pret A Portrait was huge, it received a great deal of press coverage and within two months of opening the shop experienced a 38 per cent increase in sales.
“Beyond the idea that good design can help rejuvenate and animate a shopping mall, this was a very tangible result that creativity can bring better business,” concluded Draisci.
#Live Life In Colour
- Architects: RCKa
- Client: Tayohya
The drum-shaped installation of colourful woven vinyl sheets, hung over a highly reflective floor, is designed to create a physical relationship with shoppers, first enticing them to push through the sheets into the space, then to move around it in a circle, guided by the directional arrangement of ribbons and experiencing a colour-shifting effect. The form is visible when moving around the central atrium of the mall on upper and lower levels and features four colours from home fashion brand Tayohya’s Spring 2015 palette, using actual material from placemats and bags sold in-store.
Dieter Kleiner, director of RCKa told ADF: “The project gave us the opportunity to investigate how to engage people in architecture on a very literal level, which is different from how people normally talk about engaging people in architecture in terms of context, politics, or design development etc.”
This reflects Tayohya’s strong links with the local community – what its CEO terms the importance of the “human touch” – holding events in local parks and organising charitable initiatives, such as clothing collections for less fortunate areas of China. The shop interior site was challenging in that it was not a shop window and did not have any defined frontages. And unlike other Shanghai Windows retailers, which were quite high-end or boutiquey, Tayohya sells a wide range products, from fluffy toilet seat covers, to designer flasks or glassware, which meant the design had to appeal to a wider Chinese public Kleiner’s initial concerns about communicating in a foreign language on his first project in China were allayed after a friend put him onto the smartphone app WeChat.
“In China, everyone uses WeChat, and unlike emails or phone calls, they will reply to messages at almost any time of day. The app has a very useful translate button, so any Chinese messages were about 90 per cent legible, which really helped the project.”
Dice
- Architects: OPENSYSTEMS
- Client: NN
What kind of alien world might the fashion-conscious clientelle of NN’s flagship store in Xintiandi Style inhabit? That was the question OPENSYSTEMS tried to answer when designing this installation of prismatic metal dodecahedra, inspired by geometry found in natural crystals and rocks. Located at the entrance to the store, the sculpture comprises a series of geometric polished aluminium modules, that were laser cut, bent, and welded together off site, and installed in just one night.
Marco Vanucci, founder of OPENSYSTEMS told ADF:
“The sculpture reflects the world of fashion design and its frequent fascination with alien forms and science fiction, as well as the practice’s fascination with complex geometry, computation and materials.”
NN was founded by the young entrepreneur Alexander Chu, who started out as a supplier of leather to major fashion brands, then set up his own brand in 2010, opening two stores, in Shanghai and Beijing. Chu is also something of a philanthropist, and has award scholarships to young Chinese designers to study in prestigious UK colleges, such as Central St.Martins and the Royal College of Fashion.
“NN felt our portfolio aligned best with the aesthetic of the brand, and we liked the fact they pushed us to experiment with our work,” said Vanucci. “The Chinese are incredibly open to being contaminated by new ideas, which was fun and interesting and gave us a sense of the opportunities available in the country.”
The architects initially had some concerns about the level of manufacturing quality that could be achieved, there was difficulty overcoming language barriers with the fabricators and they could not overlook the process, being based in the UK.
“Ultimately, the quality of the finishing and the overall delivery of the project was very good. We are still in touch with NN, and in discussion about potentially taking the modular construction idea further into the Shanghai shop and to Beijing,” said Vanucci.
The Rest
- Mobile Studio’s design for Giftique draws upon the meteorological qualities of Spring
- Squire and Partners developed distorted hand crafted marble sculptures for the brand Maria Luisa, inspired by the artistic process of creation and decay
- Urban Systems’ design for brand PH7 references material systems in nature and was constructed using low-cost and 3D-printing technologies, using a bio-degradable plastic
- Arup Associates created an outdoor installation for Pizza Express celebrating the art of pizza making
- Amin Taha Architects flooded Rubis Spa’s podium lobby to chest height, in an effort to capture the blue mountain lakes of Switzerland where the company was born