Buenos Aires architects Dieguez Fridman Arquitectos & Asociados have designed the flagship store for female fashion brand Ayres Store in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The shop interior is characterised by several different floor levels that are connected by steps and ramps.
The central staircase ascends diagonally across the shop interior to create space with unusual geometries on either side.
Here’s some information from the architects:
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The project seeks to reproduce in the interior of the store feelings and sensations generated by urban space: the possibility of surprises, contrasts, unexpected encounters, and changes in perspective. Just like cities are generally perceived in motion, and offer multiple surprises in any route, the store changes as people move inside it.
Movement is never horizontal or vertical but both at the same time. The specific functions of the store such as exhibition areas, fitting rooms, counters or deposit are as important as the space that separates them. As happens in urban conditions, relations between parts are more important than the parts themselves.
The initial concept is a bright white object that unfolds in curved and diagonal lines inside a dark box made out of floors, walls and a roof. Materials and geometries define this play of contrasts between smooth and textured, diagonal and orthogonal.
Several elements of the store move away from traditional models. The floor is not one plane, but a combination of steps and ramps. The roof is hard to identify between the folds of the ramps that become ceiling.
The fitting rooms have a labyrinth of mirrors where clothes can be seen from unusual angles, turning the experience of trying on clothes into a game that involves shoppers, clothes and space.
Through collaboration with industrial designers and lighting consultants, special elements were designed to display clothes and accessories. The zinc façade adapts to its turn-of-the-century neighbours, while introducing a new material on the urban landscape of the Palermo district; its’ diagonal openings are a suggestion of the space behind it and an invitation to explore
Location: El Salvador Buenos Aires
Built Area: 400 sq.m.
Year of Completion: 2008
Client: AYRES
Project: Dieguez Fridman Arquitectos & Asociados
Tristán Dieguez, Axel Fridman, Leonardo Buffa, Maria Carranza, Jazmín Zang, Ana Sol Smud, Rosario Guiraldes, Belén Gándara.
Structural Engineer: Sebastián Berdichevsky
Lighting consultant: Pablo Pizarro
Product Design: Martin Wolfson, I’Hsiu Chen
Constructor: Javier Ferreyra Ordoñez, SERING SA
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Posted by Rachael Sykes
February 22nd, 2009 at 4:15 am
First impression: A bit too much of stairs, not a lot of clothes. After seeing the renderings: Is it the same project?
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:00 am
Air moves in and out, up and down just our lives.
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:54 am
Seems to confusing. I don’t get the “why’s” and “don’ts”….. maybe I’m just too old school or jap-thinking when I still believe that less is more.
February 22nd, 2009 at 6:49 pm
this is very phaeno science center.
the details looks quite nice, but the lighting is too austere. the front door is awesome!
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:05 pm
It is in the same wavelength of Phaeno but it is well executed and actually the retail use is much more appropriate than the bulky science exhibition of the former. Certainly more than just a showroom.
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:32 am
Zaha Hadid’s 80’s revival!!!
Modular you are not to old, maybe too young, never heard of Malevich, Suprematism, Constructivism sculpture, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) ?
These formal researches are at the root of the Modern movement, while Mies was doing his minimalism investigation, the russians constructivism, and german expressionism were pushing the boundaries of Futurism and Cubism in sculpture and architecture…
Zaha and the 80’s deconstructivists continued these investigations…and was again an alternative to Minimalism in the 90’s.
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:35 am
I think it looks fantastic!
What exactly is the shiny white material?
February 24th, 2009 at 1:20 am
Congratulations guys! clean interior, the door looks nice too.
February 24th, 2009 at 1:24 am
Never heard of Eero Saarinen, Jorn Utzon ?
This is just amazing how these Zumthor groupies can launch fatwas at all that is not into there boundaries. Get a decent architetural education !!!
February 24th, 2009 at 10:38 am
can feel a bit of “less is more motivation” in this images… less clothes more circulation… less function more form… but thats perhaps the shop’s concept so it seems ok to me! i like these kind of forms or form-research… but i would still prefer it building spaces not jsut circulation because (to me) in a shop the space where you actually look at things and buy things is more important then the circulation area… otherwise you force people to hurry through your shop without have an indepth look at your clothes!
February 24th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Samuel B, that shiny white material is CORIAN… they already used in other Ayres store in a shoping center in Buenos Aires.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:48 am
the white shiny material is a stretched plastic of some sort over an open frame. when i was in the store and poked at it, it went in and back out again like the pillsbury dough boy.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:27 am
Amazing work.
Los che se la comieron
March 19th, 2009 at 4:00 am
really interesting concept , but a bit cold. It could have been in the same wood color to add warm in this project. But again, nice planning. Bravo.