Silver Interior Space and Exhibition Design · 2022
Fragrance Gallery Retail Store
- A' Design Award 2022 Silver Winner in Interior Space and Exhibition Design
- Awarded April 15, 2022
- CLIENT: SODA Architects
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 17,480
- Verification code 0ECE051D8E · Verify this award
About Fragrance Gallery Retail Store
Fragrance Gallery is a retail interior for a perfume brand in Beijing, covering 314 square meters. The space is arranged as an art gallery rather than as a conventional shop. The entrance is built from about 5,000 recycled perfume bottles, forming a media structure that changes color day and night. In the main hall, a curved surface 20 meters long carries digital projections of perfume textures and information on history and raw materials. The design combines visual, sound, scent and interactive elements, and guides visitors along a self-guided tour.
Situated at the intersection of architectural innovation and experiential retail design, this remarkable storefront by Yuan JIANG and Chen SONG transforms the conventional commercial façade into an immersive sensory threshold that speaks directly to the ephemeral nature of fragrance through material metaphor. The designers appear to have drawn upon traditions of decorative glass arts while simultaneously engaging with contemporary parametric design methodologies, creating a surface treatment that functions as both architectural envelope and artistic installation. Technical achievement manifests in the precise calibration of thousands of glass vessels, each individually positioned and illuminated to contribute to the overall chromatic symphony while maintaining legibility as discrete perfume containers, thereby establishing immediate visual connection to the gallery's merchandise and purpose. The compositional sophistication emerges through careful orchestration of color temperature gradients, warm peripheral tones suggesting amber and musk families transitioning through floral middle notes of rose and coral toward the crystalline clarity associated with fresh aquatic compositions at the apex. Such chromatic programming may reference the olfactory pyramid structure fundamental to perfumery, translating invisible scent architecture into visible spectacle. The reflective ceiling canopy introduces baroque fluidity into the otherwise rationalist grid, its organic undulations perhaps evoking the diffusion patterns of fragrance molecules dispersing through air. One might observe how the dramatic upward perspective positions viewers in a state of wonder typically reserved for sacred architecture, suggesting that this commercial space aspires to transcendence beyond mere transaction. The entrance portal, framed by the luminous bottle field, creates a threshold experience inviting passage from quotidian urban space into a realm of refined sensory pleasure. What memories or associations might arise as one contemplates this transformation of utilitarian containers into architectural poetry?
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The design concept of the media space is not simply to integrate multimedia into the planning of the space but more to explore new approaches to design. The fragrance retail space is ultimately presented as an art gallery, breaking the traditions of the sales environment. SODA offers customers a multi-dimensional experience of fragrance through visual, auditory, olfactory senses, and interactive experiences.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 314 Square Meters
- Tags
- Media space, Media integrated store, Digital installation, Fragrance gallery
- Production Technology
- The primary material of the media entrance is the brand's perfume bottles. This entrance is constructed of around 5,000 recycled perfume bottles. The bottles perform an implicit reflection of the brand's image and a surprise to the customers. Ultimately, the used perfume bottles represent a memory, an emotion, an experience, and a sensual connection between users and the brand.
- Design Challenge
- How to reasonably design the experience circulation and create a reasonable tour rhythm was the key in our design process.
The challenges we tackled are
How to invite customers to settle down and get to know the products,
How to guide people to participate in the interaction,
How can surprises discovery continue,
How to promote guests to take pictures and share
The final showroom meets the above requirements and at the same time achieves a promising communication result. - Project Duration
- The project started in August 2019 and finished in October 2020 in Beijing.
- Operation Flow
- The entrance,
SODA language,a physical pixel installation.
The designer collected 5000 perfume bottles and made a media structure out of them. The entrance is turned out into a colors-changing media that keeps rendering the atmosphere day and night.
The main hall, a 20m length irregular curved surface with digital projection. The projected changing perfume texture renders the atmosphere of the space. The projected information adds another layer on the texture and the exhibition, delivering the related knowledge of perfume to the customers, such as history and raw materials. - Research
- We studied the display methods of various perfume stores and the experience of museums, in accordance with the brand's characteristics of subverting tradition and fashion. We designed an exclusive experiential space for the brand, guiding consumers to understand the history and product characteristics during the exhibition and self-guided tour, contributing to the improvement of product sales.
- Inspiration
- This project made a breakthrough in the design of tangible smell experience. Unlike the traditional commercial spaces, whose primacy were visual experience at scale, VIVINEVO fragrance art gallery focus on the customers smell experience, which brought up the following questions,
How to provide an olfactory experience,
How to combine smell and vision and,
How to provide sensory experiences other than smell and vision. - Image Credits
- Video Artist: Wang Ying
Photo Credits: Chen Xiyu
Video:He Hui
Colors of Fragrance Gallery Retail Store
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Experiential Retail and Media Space Design
We transform retail environments into immersive experiences that engage all senses. Our award-winning approach integrates digital media, interactive installations, and innovative spatial design to create memorable commercial spaces that captivate customers and elevate brands.
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