As brick-and-mortar spaces struggle to compete against ecommerce, it’s more crucial than ever for designers to offer patrons a reason to step inside. Such experiential outlets as a children’s bookstore in Chengdu, China, a swank shopping center in Hong Kong, and the Miami location of fashion designer and entrepreneur Virgil Abloh’s Off-White reflect the exciting future of retail.

KidsWinshare Plus

To peruse the artfully arranged shelves is only one of the reasons that the KidsWinshare Plus bookstore in Chengdu, China swells with customers. Designed to bring families closer together, the shop, courtesy of Hong Kong-based Panorama Design Group, also serves as a multisensory community center. “KidsWinshare Plus wants to propose a new generation of parenting activities for Chinese society,” says Horace Pan, Panorama’s founder and design director, noting how “composite programs were introduced to redefine a typical bookstore,” allowing retail, learning, dining, and recreation to organically coexist.

Located in a shopping mall, visitors are welcomed into the venue by a rounded geometry that knits together four distinct themes reflective of “the color palette and curvilinear shape of a rainbow,” Pan points out. An edgy spiral of spraypainted metal sheets, for instance, covers the ceiling. Books and stationery are the main focus of the yellow and pink areas. Representing vibrancy and femininity, the zones mix wood veneer walls, intimate reading niches, and soft, orb-shaped displays. Calming blue classrooms, filled with natural light, contrast with the energetic brown play hub, capped in a mirrored stainless-steel ceiling for an illusory funhouse effect.

An open kitchen, a mural that calls to mind the tropics, and a sleek banquette paired with houndstooth chairs are all found in the green-hued restaurant embodying wellness. Here, platform dining surrounds an elliptical theater and a VIP section is crowned with undulating laser-cut white metal reminiscent of a gazebo. “The abstraction and modernization of the colors and shapes of a rainbow,” says Pan, “give different zones a memorable spatial experience.”

The Garden Pavilion

In a bustling area of Hong Kong, a swank shopping center promises an unusual patch of quiet contemplation at the Garden Pavilion. Designed by local studio NCDA, the addition is composed of a cocooning public sculpture garden, complete with flower shop and exhibition area, and an intimate VIP lounge. Both entities, deeply influenced by Japanese Zen gardens, are connected through undulating silhouettes that echo natural forms. “Traditionally, private lounges are designed to be quite extravagant, with lush and shiny materials,” explains Nelson Chow, NCDA’s founder and principal. “Customers these days have a different notion of luxury. In Hong Kong, people live such hectic lives, and we are learning that we need to live in harmony with nature.”

To evoke the cherry blossoms of a calming garden, the sculptural desk positioned at the lounge’s entrance is crafted from rare French Quatre Saisons Printemps marble that had to be “cut in organic shapes and fitted perfectly, as all these stones were shipped from the Pyrenees,” Chow points out.

Brass makes a number of elegant appearances, including the reception’s ceiling feature, a table painted with an oxidized finish that conjures floating petals, and most notably, the imposing sliding door, through which guests are ushered into the private lounge. Once inside, they are met with an ensemble of wavy walled spaces with serpentine seating, curving window blinds, and sconces reminiscent of rocks. One of the pavilion’s highlights, a “contoured ceiling, inspired by lines of carefully raked gravel in sand gardens,” says Chow, results “in an intense awareness of the Japanese aesthetic, reflected in a new, original way.”

Off-White

A deep orange-colored X overlaying the word “shop” on its opaque polycarbonate façade hints that the bi-level Miami Design District outpost of fashion designer-entrepreneur Virgil Abloh’s Off-White will transcend conventional retail. Here, Abloh, in collaboration with Rotterdam, the Netherlands-based AMO—the research and design studio of architecture practice OMA—redefines the purpose of a contemporary brick-and-mortar shop through the notion of flexibility.

Drawing from the dynamics found inside fulfillment centers, the linchpin of eclipsing online sales, the boutique signifies an anonymous canvas type of architecture, as AMO director Samir Bantal puts it. “Machines driven by consumers’ desires become a well-orchestrated choreography of efficiency. Moving racks bring the requested dreams closer to fulfillment center workers who package the goods ready to be sent out. The interior is therefore always in flux,” he explains.

Off-White mirrors that adaptability, accommodating exhibitions, talks, performances, and DJ sets. The store also stars a floor-to-ceiling movable wall that is, “in fact, a huge rack that transforms from display unit to stage to art space,” Bantal says. All the Italian-made furniture, outfitted with wheels, can also be easily reconfigured.

Viewed through glass, the stockroom is a standout feature, as is the sleek stainless-steel shelving and black Marquina and white Carrara marble rails that connote the streetwear label’s inherent luxury. An electric blue staircase, forest green fitting room, and red benches provide bursts of color to the industrial setting. Defined by corrugated metal walls, mesh ceiling panels, tubular lighting, and concrete flooring, the spare aesthetic is “silent on purpose,” says Bantal, “to reflect the utilitarian inspiration.”

Photos by POPO VISION, GD Media; Kris Tamburello and ©Off-White; and courtesy of NCDA

This article originally appeared in HD’s December 2020 issue.