Chinese design firm Leaping Creative has created a spaceship-like store by using tech-integrated elements in Shanghai, China. 

Named bosie "SPACE", the project was designed for unisex fashion designers' brand bosie to offer a new kind of shopping experience catching the generation Z. 

The studio was commissioned to design the brand's largest flagship store, covering a total of 2,000 square meters, so far in the city center of Shanghai. 

The store has been designed a new type of retail space in response to a retail trend in China which is nowadays day by day focusing on offering an exciting and fresh shopping experience integrating tech-oriented design components. 

Upon entering, customers are welcomed with a detailed narrative of space traveling in the interiors, reflected with stainless-steel surfaces, space-age installations, conveyor belts, turbo engines to feel themselves within a surrealistic environment.

"The retail trend in China nowadays is day by day focusing on offering an exciting and fresh shopping experience," said Zen Zheng, the design director of Leaping Creative.

"By working closely with the brand founder, we approached the design by defining the actual customer expectations for a shopping destination," Zheng added.

Based on the research of the brand's target customer which is the "generation Z", the studio co-created the in-store customer journey with "bosie", also a narrative script was written, which told the story of how "bosie" as an intelligent species landed in Shanghai from space travelling.

Described as "a retro-futurism styled store", the two-storey store features fashion products, a snacks bar and a café, a pet hotel with various interactive installations for young trendy customers. 

Façade

To respond to the strict building regulations in Shanghai, without changing the outline of the original building, Leaping Creative chose to cover the 40-metre-long facade with custom-made frosty reflective stainless-steel sheets in order to reflect the busy street as well as a space-age installation attracting passing-by pedestrians. 

Ground floor theme: terrain exploration

Followed the narrative script of the brand, for the ground floor, inspirations were drawn from space exploration equipment: conveyor belts, turbo engine, etc., to create the surrealistic environment.

For the ground floor layout, a café with ice cream and snack bar, and a vintage photo booth together with the fashion products were located. 

To break the isolation of two levels for a whole inner cabin

Designers of Leaping Creative opened up the ceiling between two floors along the central axis, the remaining beam used as a bridge to create further traffic on the 2nd floor.

Due to the basement restriction, the escalator had to install onto a 1.2m height platform to connect the two floors. Designer transformed the platform with spiral steps to a spaceship base form to encourage customers to further experience.

2nd floor theme: spaceship cabin

On the second floor a huge screen wall formed with 92 screens and an iconic "bosie goose" welcome customers from the escalator. The screen wall metaphorically serves as the front window of the space ship, also constantly playing the animation of the brand's story. 

For the second floor, designers transformed the interior to a sci-fi style hi tech lab environment not only telling customers that they are inside the spaceship, but also respond to the similar style of fashion products displayed accordingly.

A pet hotel and playground were located by the window of the second floor, which can accommodate 2-3 small size cats or dogs daily, customers can also bring their own pets to stay there while shopping.

Each floor contained 6-8 fitting rooms with individual interior to inspire customers to try different outfits.

Interactive installation

Leaping Creative designed various interactive installations according to the script, for the ground floor a space jet was flying in the mid of air. As if it was just coming out from the universe black hole. 

Facial recognition installation: by capturing the face of passing-by customer, artistic "bosie plants" will grow from the face in the screen, and customer then can download the animation clips to play on social media. 

Around the pillar, four pilot helmets were installed which reflect different personalities of the bosie brand.

A Whale-tortoise imitated installation was also installed on the 2nd floor which corresponded to the "blue" collection of the bosie brand.

Brand visual materials design

For an immersive experience, Leaping Creative also designed in-store visual elements including graphic signage, motion graphics and shopping bags, etc.

On the second floor for the self-help cashiers background, the designed motion graphic created an impression that as if the customers are inside a speeding spaceship during space travel.

Based on the general design concept, Leaping Creative also designed the opening materials. 

Project facts

Project name: bosie "SPACE"

Location: Huaihai Road, Shanghai, China

Design area: 2000 square meters

Completion time: Jun, 2021

Design company: Leaping Creative 

Design director: Zen Zheng

Experience strategy: CC Chen

Interior designers: Xiaowen Chen, Qiongwei Zhou, Shengyue Xia

Interactive installation designers: Mindong Zeng, Minghao Liang, Zijun Luo, Zhuji Li

Spatial vision and material designers: Jiarong Feng, Zheming Ji, Jiayi Huang, Jiachun Wu

Construction supervisor: Liwei Chen

Project managers: Tianwei Luo, Dongzhi You

Production manager: Zixin Huang

Material management: Yanjun He, Boquan Yu

Client: bosie

Interactive animations: SeenVision

Model: Funny

Major materials: stainless steel (Hornet steel art), terrazzo concrete (Florina), paint (Hongtufang)

Video: https://youtu.be/KalP3gx0d0I

All images © yuuuunstudio

All drawings © Leaping Creative 

> via Leaping Creative