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UCHU Wagashi
UCHU Wagashi
Kyoto, Japan
Project Featured on Jun 10, 2014
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UCHU Wagashi
Kyoto, Japan
Project Featured on Jun 10, 2014
The owner of this candy shop in Kyoto is also a designer and maker of the products. He used to be a graphic designer of character business, yet was too tired of consumption of design in the industry to start his own business back at home. Kyoto used to be an old capital and still attracts tourists from all over the world. Candies are one of the most famous local products as souvenirs, but most of them look old fashioned. Then he decided to design modern and colorful candies and their packages. With unique packages like Scandinavian products, his candies became popular among young girls and foreign tourists.
For his candy store, he chose an old townhouse in traditional urban fabric. Traditional townhouses in Kyoto are very narrow shaped like eels and commonly have private patios in the back. The smallness of the traditional townhouses (the one he picked for his store is particularly small of the kind) fit to the scale of his young business.
However, the original was even darker with a small north garden surrounded by dark color wooden walls. He also had other many contradictory images for his store; he wanted brightness for the space like his design, yet he didn’t want to dismiss gloomy atmosphere of the original. He wanted the store to be one of old-established shops, yet wished to give a fresh surprise for customers’ visit. He loved the smallness of the garden, yet wanted it to be as big as universe.
For these requests, we designed a white steel panel at the very end of the garden, with two sides next to it painted in two different colors. One on the east side for blue, and the other on the west side for yellow. The white steel panels maximize the natural sunlight in the north garden, with reflecting the color next to it vaguely onto its whiteness. In this way, the garden keeps changing its background color according to the sun movement. The visitors will never know where the color comes from, as long as they simply look in the garden at the narrow alley. Once they get in, they will find the secret of the colors aside.
We also worked with a Bonsai gardener for topiary trees in the garden. Since the candies of the store are hard and solid enough, it seemed more appropriate to have trimmed plants for the space. Bonsai can be defined as Japanese topiary, so that it seemed to be able to bridge the concept of the store: contemporary western package design on traditional eastern products. Thus designed trees like candy bars almost look like ones on a small island on the ocean. With an interior slope to compensate the floor gap, the angle when to see the garden will be renovated step by step. One might lose a sense of scale of the garden. Slightly oblique shape of the trees would provoke calm but strange emotion of those who will pass by.
For his candy store, he chose an old townhouse in traditional urban fabric. Traditional townhouses in Kyoto are very narrow shaped like eels and commonly have private patios in the back. The smallness of the traditional townhouses (the one he picked for his store is particularly small of the kind) fit to the scale of his young business.
However, the original was even darker with a small north garden surrounded by dark color wooden walls. He also had other many contradictory images for his store; he wanted brightness for the space like his design, yet he didn’t want to dismiss gloomy atmosphere of the original. He wanted the store to be one of old-established shops, yet wished to give a fresh surprise for customers’ visit. He loved the smallness of the garden, yet wanted it to be as big as universe.
For these requests, we designed a white steel panel at the very end of the garden, with two sides next to it painted in two different colors. One on the east side for blue, and the other on the west side for yellow. The white steel panels maximize the natural sunlight in the north garden, with reflecting the color next to it vaguely onto its whiteness. In this way, the garden keeps changing its background color according to the sun movement. The visitors will never know where the color comes from, as long as they simply look in the garden at the narrow alley. Once they get in, they will find the secret of the colors aside.
We also worked with a Bonsai gardener for topiary trees in the garden. Since the candies of the store are hard and solid enough, it seemed more appropriate to have trimmed plants for the space. Bonsai can be defined as Japanese topiary, so that it seemed to be able to bridge the concept of the store: contemporary western package design on traditional eastern products. Thus designed trees like candy bars almost look like ones on a small island on the ocean. With an interior slope to compensate the floor gap, the angle when to see the garden will be renovated step by step. One might lose a sense of scale of the garden. Slightly oblique shape of the trees would provoke calm but strange emotion of those who will pass by.
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