United Bamboo Clothing

United Bamboo shop Tokyo, Daikanyama, graphics, Building, clothes Boutique

Tokyo Clothes store, Japan – design by Acconci Studio, architects

Materials: metal mesh, steel pipeline, faceted glass, PVC projection product, fluorescent lights, photo-booth camera, monitor, video projection, iPods & earphones
Region: 620 sqft
Contractor: TONY

United Bamboo Tokyo

SITE: An existent two-story building on a narrow street of closely-spaced buildings, many recently turned into clothes stores; squeezed into its tiny great deal, the building is closed in on by overgrown shrubbery and weeds. The second flooring is narrower compared to very first, with a balcony at one side; the building is clad in white modular stucco panels – it bespeaks what it once was, a residence.

TASK: A Classic Building Re-clothed. The outside associated with the building is offered another epidermis: a screen of stainless-steel mesh that encloses the balcony and re-shapes the building; the framework crosses the mesh in diagonals, radiating from some not known point and taking a trip around the building, re-orienting the building.

A Glass Façade Breaks Through The Screen. It bulges to the first-floor, which houses the shop; it’s just as if it brings back once again to take you — previous mirrored side-walls, which combine inside and outside, you walk through a sliding home. The cup façade bulges out from the second-floor, which houses work and showroom; projected on the top façade, off to the street, tend to be photos of people in clothing through the store.

A Clothes Store As Smooth As Skin. The inner resembles material, just like the clothing in the shop; it’s PVC sheeting, rear-projection display. The PVC is drawn straight down, arched down, from the ceiling on the wall space; it’s taken right out of the wall space, and pressed back, to produce shelves — it’s taken out and around which will make a counter. In front of store, the PVC is drawn up through the ceiling, across second floor façade; it will make the projection screen.

A shop At First Glance, A shop That’s All Exterior. Skin glows from within; light from fluorescents, behind the PVC, is diffused for the shop. The garments is illuminated from overhead and behind; the area lights the shop.

Skin Hides The Bones. The structure for the old building is subsumed into brand-new features. At side of the shop, PVC through the ceiling is taken down around columns, and pulled off to make shelves for CD’s. Further within, all of two articles is hidden inside a three-sided mirror; three men and women can examine on their own, separately, at the same time and in similar space.

Clothes in Jungle. The small store bulges out-of it self; the non-structural wall space of this old building tend to be removed, and curving glass alcoves push-out to the weeds and overgrown shrubbery around the store. A rack of hanging clothing is stored inside each alcove, apart from the confines of store, and inserted within the miniature forest outside – you look at clothing against a background of forest; you take a bit of clothing out of the jungle.

The Performance Of Clothes. PVC from roof and wall space is pulled back into the glass alcoves; it slopes along, above and below holding clothes, and tends to make a stage for all of them. The racks extend inside the store; the holding garments have relocated in from outside. As customers weave round the racks, inside and out of nooks, because they take care to move through the store, the little store feels bigger.

Sergio Pirrone

Like Altering Clothing. From either of this three-sided mirrors, you can easily pull out PVC, on floor and roof paths, and draw it near you which will make a dressing room. Two mirrors land inside the dressing space, while one remains outside, for casual viewing. A panel pivots down from one mirror: inside the dressing space, it will make a shelf – whenever there’s no dressing space, you might remain here and wait for a buddy who’s shopping. Two more seating tend to be folded up into flattened triangles and hung on the racks; you are taking an individual down and take it where you desire, to test on footwear.

Drifting World. The edges associated with concrete floor are slashed lacking the walls, making a gap around the store; the PVC drops away, disappears, into a station of light around the shop. The channel of light limbs removed from the sides into the middle: around the counter, around the deployable dressing space, beneath the holding clothing while they veer out of the glass alcoves.

Clothing As Decoy. The termination of each hanging pole curves into a straight post that’s squeezed and flattened to put on an iPod with headphones; they generate a listening section the CD’s sold inside store. The shop will not occur for clothing alone; the garments sell a life-style.

Evaluating Your Self Through Other Individuals. A leftover area between structural walls, also small for shelves, is changed into a mirrored niche. Two vertical mirrors touch at right angles, while a horizontal mirror above mountains down inward; inside the niche, you can observe yourself from edges and from above. In the event that you stand back and research the middle, between mirrors, your picture is non-reversed; it's like you’re facing another person. Two different people, standing before each mirror, consider themselves through each other’s look.

Style without designs. If you prefer the method that you look, in clothes you may buy, it's possible to have yourself photographed; you stimulate a device that runs a camera, behind the mirror. It’s you whom appears in the store façade, dealing with the street; you’re using the clothes you desire, you’re looking good, you testify for United Bamboo.

Acconci Studio (Vito Acconci, Julia Loktev, Peter Dorsey, Stephen Roe, Sehzat Oner, Larry Sassi, Dario Nunez, Gia Wolff, Laura Charlton)

United Bamboo Store Tokyo – photos / information from Acconci Studio May 2008

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image © James Whitaker 2009 www.WhitakerStudio.co.uk
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