WORKS

Project: Emy Kids

Status: Realised

A sustainable child store concept in The Netherlands, Almere Poort (Duinhal). Our client was about searching the right match between the brand identity and the store experience. As a biophilic design studio we find it important to reconnect people with nature at every spatial layer. This is important to create a transition to a more green city. You have to reach the people everywhere.

We have introduced within the budget of the client a store design that attracts the attention of the viewer from a distance. We have designed a graphic element of hand drawn big leafs that you see in the back of the store, projected on the walls. In between the leafs of the big tree in the store they grab the attention, mysteriously, pulling the attention with their size. They get smaller and smaller and as if blown with the wind, they dance on the side walls to the front, eventually fading away.

Furthermore, we have designed a custom made set of wooden tables for the merchandise. Stacking them playfully at different heights. This way the small visitors (children) can playfully walk underneath them, while their parents are looking at the clothes on the tables. The tree trunk tables are in different wood textures and shades and are supported by classic turned wood legs for support. This gives the tables a different look and feel and is something not experienced before in any other store.

The store has a steel vertical H-beam situated in an odd position, making the routing in the store hard to design with. We tackled this by designing around the steel H-beam, and making it part of the design by filling the beams up with a variety of different kind of moss. This uplifted the store to a more green space and blended the vertical steel H-beams into the space. Making them not so strong visibile in the store. The back of the counter we've designed a vertical green vegetation wall.

We have added many wooden elements, natural materials and even pushed for audio of bird sounds in the store, rather than music. Research showed that people tend to enjoy green spaces and the sounds of birds. So we haveapplied different patterns and layers of biophilic design into this store interior. Making it a space where the owners pleasantly enjoy working and where the visitors take their time, relaxed, enjoying the store and what it has to offer.