Atelier A | Hangzhou TianMuLi「Still Life」Pop-up Space
Atelier A presents Still Life, a flash mob space for Hangzhou's Tianmuli team. It is a beautiful space in a glass sunroom on the lawn of the atrium, created by the still life series of floral objects by the Tianmuli ITEMS BY OōEli team, and flowers from MondayMonday, a local florist in Hangzhou. Atelier A chose the materials and design in accordance with the architectural features of TianmuLi, and constructed the entire space in accordance with the architectural language.
Project Background
This time, the sense of the Flower Vessel Spirit is from the building in Tianmu Li, which was designed by Renzo Piano. The overall building material is made of aluminum and glass curtain wall, and bolts are used to fix the structure. The team applied this design language to the florist, resulting in a slim but architecturally unique space. In addition to the pre-demonstration needs, the owner will also use the space as a combination of a store and a floral workshop, which will have a higher demand for commercial attributes and interaction in the space. So interactivity is also an important consideration in our design.
Furniture Design
Atelier A has followed the architectural language to complete this design. In terms of material selection, we chose some finished materials from the existing building systems to build the furniture structure in the space, such as grill metal panels, light shaft system and so on. In addition, as this space is a continuous flash store, all the structures need to be quickly assembled and disassembled for easy transportation, so we tried to use some finished materials and avoid customization.
In furniture design, we tend to use multiple languages to construct and break the dullness of the whole set. The two designers in the group tried to use different methods and materials to construct these sets of furniture with different characteristics.
The first set of furniture is made of lattice panels. We made a table and a display shelf. Lattice panels are usually used in parks and outdoor walkways, and they are also used in the outdoor staircase of Tianmu-li. We chose to use the elements of the building itself to echo the interior and exterior of the building. The table in the center of the exhibition is made of lattice panels, which are bolted together with M-shape clips and U-shape hangers to create a double-height display table with a large footprint. Another display shelf was constructed using angle iron welded back to back as columns, and then the lattice panels were bolted in place.
The second group of furniture is two square cash registers created by the optical axis system. The reason for this structure is that originally there were two unattractive air conditioning units on the site, which had to be remodeled to accommodate the air conditioning at the same time. For this we chose the optical axis system, a material generally used in laboratories or medical factories for precision machining, which can be used with glass or wood fittings. Two housings were made to cover the two air-conditioning units while retaining the air vents, which were transformed into two cash registers with glass and wooden cabinets. If the exhibition ends, the optical axis system can be transformed into other furniture for reuse.
The third set of furniture is the wooden one. This set of furniture is constructed with traditional inserts, with wooden boards interspersed with each other, making it easy to assemble and disassemble. On the wooden flower stand we used rebar to hoop it with three circles, just the right size to snap the cylindrical flower tube. Subsequently, if it needs to display other products, there is also room for modification. It can be directly removed and replaced by a straight rebar to transform into a display stand.
The last piece is a wool felt display board. We took advantage of the ductility of the rebar, by bending it and hanging two wool felt boards on the front and back. The felted wool boards are lightweight and easy to handle. It can also be replaced with other display boards, which can be reused many times.
Detailed Design
From the very beginning of the design, we started to communicate with floriculture, hoping that the flowers could look as if they were growing out of the space and the furniture, and that the element of flowers could be used to neutralize the structure of the building. So a lot of flowers were inserted into the edges and corners of our furniture in a vibrant way.
The lattice table is also a detail of our exhibition. The whole table covers a large area, with a high peripheral circle and a low center, and a relatively large area concave in the center. We hope that visitors will walk slowly around the table to appreciate the design of the flower vessels after entering the exhibition. At the same time, the visitor is looking down to see the line of sight is down, just to see the center of this group of flower arrangement. It also has a second function: when the table area is turned into a floral workshop, people sit around the table to learn flower arrangement, and the recessed area in the center can be used as a worktable for stacking flowers.
Design of lines of action
Since the location of the two air conditioning chassis is located on both sides of the centerline of the space, it naturally divides the space into left and right areas, so we leave the left side for the large table as a display space, while the right side places other furniture as a sales space.
From the dynamic line, we place one of the flower racks in the center of the right side space. It guides the audience around the space. In addition, when the left side space is used as a floral Workshop, flower rack can be moved to the middle of the two cashiers so as to block other guests from entering and turn the left side into a relatively independent area.
PROJECT INFORMATION
Project Name: Tianmuli Flowerware Flash Shop
Address: China - Hangzhou - 398 Tianmushan Road
Architecture Firm/Company/Organization: Shanghai Yanwen Architecture Studio (Atelier A)
Owner: Tianmu Li ITEMS BY OōEli Team
Lighting Consultants: Isometrix lighting Design Ltd
Construction team: Dongde Construction
Completion: October 2024
Building Area: 54sqm
Architects: Zhu Yanwen, Li Mengjie, Wang Tilly
Photo: Courtesy of the owner