Guangzhou witnessed the birth, departure, and return of MINISO. From the first MINISO store in 2013 to the MINISO LAND Guangzhou City Park No. 1 Store, the city and the brand share a collective memory of growth.
The new flagship store responds to the brand's continuous evolution through renewed spatial scenarios. The designer has constructed a more grandiose and fantastical visual language system for the MINISO LAND Guangzhou No. 1 Store.
With "A Never-Ending Urban Celebration" as the core narrative thread, the designer establishes a highly ritualized spatial hierarchy and conceptual progression.
Upon entering, the spatial experience is naturally divided into two thematic realms along the vertical circulation: the ground floor constructs "Garden of Eden Party" as a pure and healing spiritual homeland, while the second floor interprets "Ode to Joy" as a vibrant factory of creative eruption.
From bottom to top, a complete conceptual closed loop is formed—from natural poetry to humanistic creation, from spiritual sanctuary to joyful production—elevating the retail space beyond traditional consumption boundaries into an immersive "Brand Wonderland" that integrates aesthetic depth with emotional warmth.
Prologue to a Fantasy: The Invitation to Celebration
While preserving the structural columns, the designer demolished the street-facing canopy and opened up the enclosed double-layer exterior wall, reconstructing a scenarized grand entrance where the visual focus expands to the entire building facade.
Confronted with a mere 0.4-meter extension depth constraint, the designer drew inspiration from the dimensional compression of pop-up greeting cards, organizing rich content frameworks through delicate layered stratification.
The entire storefront facade is thus creatively conceived as a gift-box-shaped pop-up card. Through its unfolding and expansive facade, it extends an invitation to a celebration of beauty and surprise.
On the facade, birds, beasts, flora, and IP characters leap forth like curiosities from Pandora's box, interweaving into the brand's fantastical tableau. Simultaneously, it echoes the real ecology of the oceanarium, botanical garden, and science museum within Grandview Mall, connecting the brand narrative to familiar place memory and establishing resonant perceptual bonds.
This intense visual narrative not only enhances spatial recognizability but also becomes an experiential domain of exceptional attraction and brand identity within the commercial interface of Grandview Mall.
Garden of Eden Party: The Resurgence of Color
"Eden" symbolizes the innocence, beauty, and abundance in human memory; the designer employs this to construct a temporary spiritual sanctuary for urban consumers to escape the complexities of daily life. The introduction of "Party" leverages the diverse assembly of brand IPs and product value as mediums to create a contemporary dopamine-releasing joyous arena.
The space is rooted in ancient Greek temple aesthetics, employing symmetrical colonnades, arched portals, and classical proportions as its skeletal framework, unfolding a solemn and serene ritual order that imbues the space with a sacred and restrained foundational temperament.
At the center of the IP zone, the red apple becomes the narrative focal point of the entire venue. Through the contemporary reinterpretation of the Eden archetype, it crystallizes the brand's fervent vitality and its never-ceasing spirit of adventure.
Within the overall spatial context, the shelving and display system is seamlessly integrated with the theme. Through classical architectural forms such as colonnades, arches, and portals, the display shelves are naturally embedded within the structural skeleton.
Through immersive scenarized storytelling, the space weakens the overt purpose of consumption, dissolving the tension of commerce and endowing wandering with relaxed delight. Shopping transcends its singular essence of selection, transforming into a carefree, leisurely, and scenically progressive fantastical roaming party in the Garden of Eden.
Beneath the temple-like structure, natural elements manifest the flourishing of all things in symbiotic coexistence, conveying the shelter and abundance inherent in the Eden allegory. The entire field thus becomes a metaphor for the brand ecosystem: MINISO, with its complete industrial ecology, serves as a fertile land that gathers outstanding global design resources.
Drawing from the classical peristyle layout, the designer systematically divides display interfaces between columns. The wall-mounted shelving adopts the tiered composition of sanctuaries, combined with staggered irregular niches, balancing visual order with functional rhythm while translating the poetic imagery of Eden into a walkable, perceptible, and experiential immersive spatial sequence.
Circulation nodes, product displays, and spatial narratives interweave vertically, layer upon layer, guiding visitors' footsteps toward deeper spatial mysteries.
Walking through it, one roams between classical sacred aesthetics and an atmosphere of playful exploration, completing a gentle yet richly ritualized spatial pilgrimage.
Bright and resplendent colors spread unrestrainedly, as if poured from an artist's palette, softly breaking rational constraints and allowing spatial emotion to transition from serenity to vividness, colliding to create saturated visual layers and artistic tension.
Ode to Joy: The Fugue of Imagination
The second-floor space encompasses diverse product categories, with its main interior-facing facade extending 37 meters, creating complex visual and functional relationships. The designer needed to establish a unified narrative context among functional zoning, visual interface, and human circulation. Thus, "music" was chosen as the overarching metaphor—it symbolizes flowing creativity, achieving harmony and coordination within complex melodies.
The designer intends to create a factory that produces joy and creativity, using more playful spatial language to evoke fresh, fervent emotional fluctuations. The spatial design alludes to the birth process of each product, making the brand's meticulousness a perceptible experience.
The shelving responds to the musical concept: elements of wind, string, and percussion instruments are recomposed into display installations, while metal rivets, mechanical arms, and raw-material-box-shaped storage cabinets integrate industrial aesthetics.
Spatial volumes appear compressed and folded by rhythmic forces, forming dramatic compositions of layered superimposition and mutual perspective. Walking through it, the gaze always captures the colors and light-shadow of the next area through openings and closures, like the brilliant passages continuously emerging in a musical movement, persistently drawing people's curiosity to explore forward.
In the relentless torrent of the city, MINISO LAND is a gentle dream quietly overflowing from the crevices of daily life.
With lightweight design, it extends the boundaries of reality, offering a temporary haven for those rushing through—a corner of respite and self-healing. Vibrant colors awaken emotional vitality; breaking away from stereotypical daily scenes, people wander freely, shedding fatigue and constraints, rediscovering the authentic joy of life.
This bidirectional co-creation of beauty and surprise is a romantic reverie jointly penned by the designer and the brand, dedicated to the city and to all.