Seoul store creates dialogue between nature and the built environment

Located in Seogyo-dong, the OY shop sports geometric lines and shapes. It’s a fashion brand that reinterprets and expresses itself in a modern way.

Across its two-floor showroom are ‘pools’ of nature spilling out among the metal and clinical white walls and structures creating a dialogue between nature and the built environments.

GALLERY

Founded only in 2015 by young designer Byeong-jun Kim, men’s streetwear brand OY (pron.: Oh Why) opened its first branded retail space only recently in Hongdae, a hugely popular shopping and entertainment area of Seoul‘s Millennial and Gen Z demographics.

Occupying approx. 442 sqm. (4,758 sq.ft.) set across two floors of a modern building, the store features a strikingly understated interior design by local architecture practice COV Studio.

A space close to ‘no’ in a city with a lot of light. When you open the door and pass the entrance, you will see an open passage and a zone that seems to be connected to an invisible but infinite world. The area shown at the entrance, along with the dome-shaped ceiling, is aisle-shaped.

The ground floor of the OY flagship store, encased on two sides in floor-to-ceiling glass, sees an eye-catching setting of curved steel partitions and sinuous pathways below a backlit vaulted ceiling, and dotted with lush plants. A staircase in pitch black leads up to the upper floor where a shrine-like setting can be found. Stacked stone blocks take centre stage and serve as a display, tying in with an elongated sales counter which hugs a silvery support pillar at one end

By placing a curved hanger, the designers have created a space where you can see things such as the plants growing on top of cold properties and focus on something that’s reflected in the mirror at an angle. If you go up a straight staircase, you’re out of the monotonous form. Furniture of various physical properties that maximize the three-dimensional effect unfold.

Images by Yongjoon Choi via ArchDaily