Schemata Architects have recently completed the Descente Blanc store in Tokyo’s Daikanyama district, Japan. Designed with the intention to incorporate “movement” in the space, Schemata Architects especially focused on redesigning a service process, or a routine movement of a shop staff going to pick up items from a stock room and delivering them to a customer. Ceiling space, equipped with operable hanger racks going up and down, is allocated for the stock space. Here the shop staff’s routine movement is converted to vertical movements of the hanger racks. The hang racks can be used for display, utilized as “moving displays” which can be changed day by day.
This shop is situated in a part of a commercial facility composed of a series of buildings clad in the same curtain wall. “We did not want the shop to stand out too much, nor to nestle silently in such environment.” explain Schemata Architects.
Their solution was to reinforce its spatial character by adding and subtracting elements made of existing materials in the surrounding environment, without adding new elements. Material of the existing exterior wood deck is brought into the interior. An anti-corrosive painted structural steel members constitute the interior space, occasionally extending towards outside to accentuate the exterior facade.
all images by Kenta Hasegawa | courtesy of Schemata Architects