INTO is boutique retail architecture’s response to global fashion, ubiquitous branding, and the placelessness of modern metropolitan shopping malls. The 700-square-foot space is situated within the exclusive Palais Renaissance along Orchard Road in Singapore. INTO’s internally-activated, box-like form analogues the mall’s own isolation from its broader local context. Discrete outlines of peculiar objects and perverse scenes—which comment on politics, war, labor, sex roles, violence, and lust—are embedded into the sandblasted camouflage pattern adorning INTO’s aluminum skin, which wraps the entire store. These allusions convey a subtle opposition to the typical decontextualized, apolitical milieu of high-end shopping.....
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