Spacial

Iittala

Iittala invited us to design their first standalone store in Asia, an 85 square metre flagship in the Miramar shopping centre in Taipei, opened in 2016. The challenge was a particular one: how to present a large product range rooted in Scandinavian values of craft and simplicity to an Asian consumer base with a very different set of cultural references. We spent time in Iittala's Helsinki production facility early in the process, and it was there that the central idea for the store arrived. We noticed the wooden tools used by the glass blowers, objects of extraordinary refinement born entirely from function, and those tools became the decorative language of the wall system. The spine of the space is a modular shelving system we designed specifically for Iittala, built from anodised aluminium extrusion that can be cut to any length and configured in an unlimited range of arrangements. A new glass pendant light for the store references the plastic butcher's lights found in markets across Asia, a deliberate bridge between Nordic craft and the visual culture of the region. The overall concept was a walk through the brand, grounded in Nordic heritage but considered for where it was standing.