Luxihe is a popular bakery in China that sells a wide variety of fresh Chinese traditional pastries baked daily in-store.
The store’s interior design used to be Chinese garden-themed, boldly using the brand’s dark green color. Although the store was designed well enough to function as a bakery, it is always inevitable that people will feel the standardized atmosphere of chain stores. It was difficult to feel the warmth of baking and selling on-site and the attentiveness of the bakers.
Therefore, we decided not only to design the store for the dessert as a commodity but also to express the enthusiasm of the bakers. To achieve this, we opened up the back of the store to form a public-facing pastry baking room, allowing customers to notice the bakers’ presence more visually in the context of the space.
The microcement on the floor and the diatomite on the wall are all hand-made by artisans. The unglazed bricks around the columns are specially selected and unique to one another. By highlighting the unique texture of these hand-made materials, we hope to create a comfortable space where the customers can truly feel the human touch and the hand-made process, rather than creating a glam but lifeless shop.
The use of handicrafts is ubiquitous throughout the space. For example, the product display furniture is shaped from our traditional handicraft of woven bamboo over porcelain, inspired by its meaning of “wrapping and protecting important objects”. The natural and smooth weaving form of bamboo fiber and the delicate and exquisite texture of artificial stone make the product display furniture itself become a craft worth touching and visually staying.
In order to prolong customers’ stay in the merchandising area and have the feeling of free shopping, the furniture is staggered in an orderly manner. At the same time, from the entrance to the cashier’s counter, they are placed in a stepped pattern from short to high in a ladder to ensure that customers can see the products displayed from the entrance.