Eyewear Shop Interior Design | JINS | Tokyo | Schemata

JINS, one of the biggest eyewear brands in Japan, commissioned Schemata Architects to design the renewal of their Ageo shop on the occasion of its 12th anniversary. The existing shop consists of two L-shaped blocks, respectively an eyewear shop and a cafe, positioned around a square courtyard surrounded by an open corridor serving as a cozy outdoor cafe space. However, the existing building was clad in wooden panels and the courtyard and the cafe were hidden from the street. We removed the exterior walls and installed Low-E paired glass to initiate the view towards the beautiful courtyard from the street, while creating an impressive display of their extensive eyewear products highly visible from the street at the same time.

The interior design was intended to emphasize the effect of exposing the skeleton of the building. New interior walls are offset from the original wall lines, finished with brick tiles usually used for exterior finishes; shelves and display furniture are designed as independent elements detached from the building. Eyewear products vary in shapes and colors, and we collaborated with the graphic design office KIGI to introduce visual elements in the shop so that the products and the space can relate to each other in a free and independent way......more

Shop & Office Interior Design | Nakagawa Masashichi Shoten Omotesando | Tokyo | Schemata

" At first I was pleasantly surprised to discover this land filled with such lush greenery in Aoyama, in the middle of Tokyo. I wanted to provide the same kind of pleasant surprise to customers of this shop, both on the first and second floors. The building stood there, simple and open towards the existing greenery, and seemed to harmonize with the vitality of the land. Respecting such surrounding environment, we tried to minimize the infill construction and composed the interior with furniture instead.

The site is located at a certain distance from the busy district, and we needed to come up with a different design from their previous shop-in-shop style. In addition, they are hoping to make necessary modifications as they go along.

Our solution was to design display units based on standard modules that can be moved and assembled freely. In order to avoid a monotonous appearance, we placed clear acrylic units in / on wooden units irregularly, while deliberately breaking a sense of stability to a certain degree. Such irregular breaks in the visual sequence create different impressions of displayed products, according to viewpoints.

There is a traditional Japanese gardening concept of the “borrowed scenery”, or using the surrounding natural scenery as the background. In the second floor office,we wanted not only to“borrow” the surrounding greenery as the background, but also tried to integrate it with the interior space by planting trees on the desks, thanks to the great help from Seijun Nishihata......more

Cafe Interior Design | Blue Bottle Coffee | Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Roastery & Cafe | Tokyo | Japan | Schemata

" Blue Bottle Coffee (from Oakland, California) opened their first roastery/café in Japan, to operate as the production base of Blue Bottle Coffee Japan. Schemata Architects was commissioned to renovate the former storage building at Kiyosumi-Shirakawa in Tokyo to accommodate roastery, cafe, office, barista training room and pastry factory. Blue Bottle Coffee is a leader of the third-wave coffee companies; they strive to achieve the best flavor and aroma, while promoting fair-trade and improving the labor environment of coffee farms, to construct a balanced production circle and to develop a positive relationship in which baristas and consumers raise awareness and grow up together.

We respect and support their stance by making the building open to outside and creating a continuous space where everyone can establish and be involved in the balanced relationship to stay aware of each other’s action and to collaborate for better results. In order to maintain such relationship across spatial boundaries, we install very large-sized glass doors and screens on each floor to maintain transparency between neighboring spaces, inside and outside, and lower and upper floors.

The former storage building had no windows, so we made a large skylight in the center to distribute natural light throughout the space on the second floor. The skylight is located right above the void space connecting the first and second floors, where the indoor greenery on the upper level reflects abundant natural light and delivers the exotic forest-like light and shade to the lower level.".........more