Page 99 - AIT0123_E-Paper

Entwurf • Design Yatofu Creatives, FI-Helsinki
Bauherr • Client ILO Living
Standort • Location Wu Kang Lu, CN-Shanghai
Nutzfläche • Floor space 58 m 2
Fotos • Photos Wen Studio
Mehr Infos auf Seite • More info on page 134

SHOWROOM ILO LIVING

IN SHANGHAI

With ILO, a showroom has been opened in Shanghai
which is entirely dedicated to Nordic design and does
justice to its name – ilo being the Finish word for joy;
and it certainly keeps its promise. Yatofu Creatives ca-
refully altered the spatial experience of a so far cold,
dark bunker so that it continues to keep its quality as
a protected space in the centre of the noisy mega-city.

T o Finland in stages: It appears to be impossible to abscond from
the sheer size of Shanghai. Yet in the tree-lined historic Wukang
Road, in the midst of the inner city, a heterogeneous, mixed-use deve-
lopment in European style, with a “humane” height of predominantly
Grundriss • Floor plan one- to five-storey buildings, makes you forget the nearby architectural
constructions rising high into the sky and the oppressive urban canyons.
Boutiques, cafés and restaurants located in the buildings from the early
th
20 century – on inviting, diversely parcelled lots – attract people to the
city district and enliven the boulevard of plane trees. In the new flagship
store of ILO Living, the visitors can now also escape all of the high-rise
buildings, the smog and the noise and completely ignore the mega-
urban space while sheltered in the protective cloak of an underground
bunker. For a start, a completely terracotta-coloured entrance area re-
duces all the senses to zero. Like a portal, the vestibule dimly lit by
bowl-reflector lamps guides into a “sub-arctic climate zone”. Take a
deep breath. On approximately 50 square metres of retail space, the
lifestyle brand offers everything that is required for Scandinavian fur-
nishing. Angela Lindahl and Yihan Xiang, who are headquartered in
Helsinki, designed a Nordic-looking interior that follows this brand
identity. The interior of the large passage room is dominated by yellow-
stained shelves whose vertical elements appear to be columns with an
architrave resting on them positioned in front of the wall or free-stan-
ding. These shelves structure the long, windowless room and give it
height. The item of furniture furthermore produces width: With its ope-
nings, emphasized by the indirect lighting on the underside of the shel-
ves, a kind of window level is produced that moves the metres-thick
closed wall into the background. Homogeneously lined with oak ve-
neer, the room at the very back lacks this effect. This does, however, not
detract from Yatofu Creatives’ achievement of providing the negatively
connoted shelter with a warm, beneficial atmosphere merely with the
furnishing, the materials, the colour and the light. An underground de-
Visualisierung • Visualization sign that manages to top many a high-rise building in the city.

AIT 1/2.2023 • 099