We love bakeries. And we especially love bakeries with a true sense of design and style. We have written about bakeries for almost two decades and we continue to look for fresh ideas.

In the Mi Pan Bakery project, we love the candid admission of the designers that they recognized they could not create a design that was too modern, too funky or too different as it might turn people away and intimidate tradition-loving customers who are not used to “designer” bakeries. Yet the designers also wanted to evoke a distinctive feeling of newness and freshness to update the image of the 40-year-old brand.

For four decades, Mi Pan has been a bakery for everyone, for young and old. It was important for the brand to remain an “everyone’s” bakery, to not appear snobbish or pretentious. And as bread is an integral part of many Mexican traditions and celebrations, it was important to continue the open-to-all and part-of-everyone’s-life brand values.

The work was completed by Concentrico, an interdisciplinary collaboration studio of architects and designers, based in San Pedro Garza Garcia, Monterrey, Mexcio. The studio is led by creative director Alejandro Peña Villarreal who was also the head architect of the Mi Pan project. Other key project leads were architects Ana Rebeca Mata and Jose Maria Cuevas and industrial designer May Cisneros.

To understand the project’s connection with the near and distant past of Mexico, the designers at Concentrico not only analyzed the history of the brand but also the visual and practical traditions and customs of Mexican bakeries in general.

As a result, the bakery’s promise “Siempre bueno masa a migaja” – always good from dough to crumb – remains unchanged and it is also highly visible on the back wall of the store. The aprons of the staff carry the message “Prueba el Pan de Verdad” – Try the real bread.

The overall ambiance of the bakery is open and clean, warm and inviting, but it is not cozy or homey. There is a sense of production and large scale with metal trays, rows of shelving and large displays.

There are few visual or physical barriers between the customers and the bakers, and the active production pace of a busy bakery is openly visible to all. At the exit, customers will encounter a display of the traditional celebratory breads, Rosca de Reyes and Pan de Muertos.

“Rosca de Reyes” (kings’ wreath) is a Mexican traditional celebratory bread wreath enjoyed with family and friends on “Dia de Reyes” on January 6^th (Epiphany Day or Kings Day). A small plastic figurine is placed inside the wreath symbolising baby Jesus. The person who finds the figurine is expected to throw a fiesta and serve tamales for everyone on” Dia de la Candelaria” on February 2.

“Pan de Muertos” (bread of the dead) is an essential part of a “Dia de Los Muertos” (celebrated in October or November) home shrine or ofrenda. The bread’s purpose is to nourish the dead who visit the land of the living on that day. Tuija Seipell

Images Jose Miguel Gonzales/Apertura Studio, Juan Pablo Tavela/Jpark Studio

The post Mi Pan Bakery, Mexico City, Mexico appeared first on The Cool Hunter Journal.

Although BIBU is promoted as a “pet store” it is really much more. It is an entire pet-care and pet-pampering environment, strategically answering the call of the younger generations to provide the services and products their pampered pets need. In addition to retailing pets, pet supplies and food, BIBU includes also a veterinary clinic and hospital, and facilities for pet boarding, spa, grooming and training.

The designers of the two-level, 630 square-metre (6,781 sq. ft) shop are Guangchou-based One Fine Day Studio & Partners, a (ofD), an architecture and design firm established in 2013.

Lead architect Jump Lee with design team members Chun-jie He and Yong-jie Lao drew inspiration for the upscale project from American filmmaker Stan Kubric’s iconic 1968 sci-fi film 2001:A Space Odyssey.

The façade of the store that is located in the high-end condo building, Gaode Mansion, is a happy and friendly bright blue square that immediately attracts attention. With its rounded openings it resembles a 1950s appliance, perhaps a radio, fridge or TV. It also heralds the retro milieu of the interior.

On the ground floor, right at the entrance, ofD placed a social area, a café called DOPPIO by La Moitié where the Space Odyssey-theme is the most obvious. The white tiled floor, the futuristic furniture pieces placed far from each other, and the overall feel of space, light and whiteness are all part of this retrofuturist impression, the future of the past. The design firm has worked with La Moitié before, so the connection with that brand came naturally.

The second-floor includes the pet hospital and clinic where cleanliness is the main requirement. But even there, in the general whiteness, the Space Odyssey-theme is palpable in the, muted colours, smoky metal and abundance of lighting fixtures.

The two-level space, although divided clearly into sections that separate the various services, is connected by an open atrium that gives the viewpoint from which one can really appreciate yet another aspect of the Space Odyssey theme, the rounded forms of the project.

From the spiralling stairs to partitions, lighting fixtures and windows, everything is rounded. This also includes all corners as there are no sharp angles in BIBU, which of course is also good for the guests, the pampered pets.

The overall colour scheme is muted white with forest green and robin’s-egg blue as accents and with white tiles and dark wooden panels covering the floors.

The Gaode Mansion is located in the core area of Guangzhou, next to the K11 Art Mall and the International Financial Centre. Tuija Seipell

Images by yuuuunstudio

The post BIBU Pet Store, Gaode Mansion, Guangzhou, China appeared first on The Cool Hunter Journal.

With smart design, basic local craft skills and a flexible experimental attitude, even the most ordinary warehouse-like space can become an appealing selling environment.

This was recently proven in the Yuntai Ice Chrysanthemum Industry Park in Houyanmen Village in Huanfeng Town, where Beijing-based LUO Studio www.luostudio.cn transformed a hurriedly built steel-frame warehouse into a locally relevant, charming  display space by creating a delicate-looking wooden sub-structure inside the bland hall.

The purpose of this specific building is to function as a display area and showroom for the region’s famous Ice Chrysanthemum products that have a multitude of medicinal and cosmetic uses. The selling channels of these products from this space include hosted tour groups, franchisee marketing and livestreaming. It was also becoming clear that because of social media and online channels, the physical selling and display environment have become crucially important.

In addition, the pandemic has interrupted the influx of tour groups and the ice chrysanthemum plantations in the village have suffered severe production decrease because of recent floods. All this required the space not only to help boost sales but also do it with minimum costs.

Designers and construction instructors Luo Yujie, Wang Beilei, Huang Shangwan, Zhang Chen of LUO Studio worked with local people to create the 602 square-metre (6,480 sq.ft) exhibition space with all this in mind. Local affordable materials, and uncomplicated techniques that did not require special equipment or specialised skills, were the answer. LUO Studio chose thin wooden panels with a high lumber recovery rate manufactured by a local timber factory as main construction material. The panels can be assembled by hand and easily relocated and reused.

Onsite experimentation helped the designers and local workers to arrive at the best solutions especially in terms of bending the wood to an optimal, safe shape. The result is a delicate and organic-looking display area that is thoroughly local, and cleverly disguises the unseemly industrial hall.

Luo Yujie, founder of LUO Studio, is known for his creative and bold design solutions using reclaimed materials, especially wood. His award-winning project include the Longfu Life Experience Center and the Luontuwan Pergola. He often strives to counter the quick-and-cheap construction characteristics of governmental bodies with the smart use of local materials and craft skills, and with the reuse and recyclability of materials.

Yuntai Mountain is located in the Yuntai Geo Park, a popular tourist attraction with its impressive rugged nature including Yuntai Waterfall which at 314 metres (1,030 ft) said to be the tallest in China. Tuija Seipell

Images: Weiqi Jin

The post Yuntai Mountain Ice Chrysanthemum showroom, Xiuwu County, Henan Province, China appeared first on The Cool Hunter Journal.

We support the liberation of bread and all baked goods from all unsightly plastic bags and from humiliatingly poor ingredients. Bread is important, essential and incredibly good and good for you when taken seriously. This does not mean complicated or gimmicky. In fact, the best breads, cookies and pastries are the ancient basics, traditional recipes lovingly passed on and sometimes improved by each generation. These gorgeous traditional breads deserve to be created, sold and enjoyed in beautiful surroundings.

Our love of bread and bakeries where tradition and modern life coexist has resulted in a series of articles we headlined The Rise of the Designer Bakery. It continues to be one of our most popular and most-copied article series ever. And we are glad to add another little establishment to this series of bakeries: Dorbolò La Gubana Boutique in Cividale de Friuli, in Udine, Italy.

Dorbolò La Gubana Boutique is a bakery and café designed by Giorgio di Bernardo, CEO and founder of Udine-based Visual Display S.r.l. We have featured di Bernardo’s work before, including the Restoration of Vitello d’Oro, The City’s Oldest Restaurant, a secret pop-up bar, Mr. Simon, both also located in Udine in Northeastern Italy.

Gubana is a typical Friulian dessert of the Valli del Natisone area traditionally prepared at home for great occasions. It is said to date back to 1,400 years ago and brought to this region by the people of ancient Slavic origin.

The Dorbolo family has a long tradition of baking this local dessert that is both a pastry and a cake made of sweet, leavened dough and filled with layers of dried fruit and nuts. The owners of the new bakery café, Jessica and Joelle Dorbolo, have inherited the recipe from their grandmother Antonia.

In addition to gubana, the shop sells other cakes and pastries and traditional breads. Its interior is minimalist in all other aspects except in the ceiling that has an arched substructure that could be said to resemble the layers of a gubana when it is cut into slices. The designer tells us that the shop is envisioned to be a small stage with its various sets up in the wings. The majority of the space is dedicated to the marble display cases, but in the background, there are small round tables with intriguing L-shaped brass legs that bolt into the wall-mounted seating.

The overall effect is that of a light and happy yet decidedly elegant cake box or container that just happens to have breathtaking views of the historic city center of Cividale del Friuli.  Tuija Seipell

Images Camilla Bach – Styling Sara Bertolini

The post Dorbolò La Gubana Boutique, Cividale del Friuli, Udine, Italy appeared first on The Cool Hunter Journal.

When Vic and Anthony Puharich opened their first retail butcher shop, Victor Churchill, on Queen Street in Sydney’s Woollahra neighbourhood 10 years ago, we knew they were on to something unusual. We wrote about them then with enthusiasm and although it was the father-and-son duo’s first retail endeavour, it was obvious to us they were in it for real.

Every detail in the Sydney boutique was thought through from the tiniest aspect of the interior to the super-exclusive selection of products, and to the elegant, attentive service. This was sheer retail theatre but without the fake over-reaching theatrics so prevalent in retail then and even more so today. This was traditional, old-school retail, yet it completely fit in the contemporary context and met the surprised clientele’s needs and desires they didn’t even know they had. It was the surprise of it all that made it so magical.

And now, when they have opened their second exclusive retail environment on High Street in Melbourne’s Armadale, we are equally excited. The same values and enchantment are present here, yet this is not a cookie-cut copy of the Sydney boutique. This is its own environment with new ideas baked into the same traditional values and approach.

The late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain also became enamored with the Sydney shop, calling it “the most beautiful butcher shop in the world” during one of his episodes filmed there. The Puharichs were dreaming of opening another store in one of the great cities in the world, so there was a synergy there. “Actually, we had plans to do a shop with Bourdain in New York, but that of course did not happen, sadly,” Anthony Puharich tells The Cool Hunter.

“Instead, we decided to open in Melbourne with the same values and principles we’ve established in our Sydney store.” The physical Melbourne store space carries with it some impressive history as well, although this is not a historic butcher shop like the Victor Churchill premises in Sydney. The Melbourne shop is located in the Heritage-listed site of the oldest State Savings bank of Victoria.

Designer Rod Faucheux of Surry Hills, Sydney-based loopcreative has taken the owners’ philosophy and the traditions and experiences of the Sydney shop and translated it all into a unique, new experience. It carries many of the hallmark features of the first shop including the Himalayan salt bricks in the curing rooms, the centrally located solid-wood butcher blocks, and the marble flooring.

Dramatic lighting, dark hues, and curving forms are also present in both stores. In the Melbourne shop, the attention to detail is impressive and includes the sausage-shaped door handles and an original, fully restored Berkel slicer from the 1930s that is in constant use, evoking the traditions and history of the profession of butchery.

What we love about this company is the fact that this is their second store. It would have been more typical and very tempting to start cloning the surprising success of the first store as soon as possible and in doing so, change the company’s nature to something that the owners clearly are not interested in. We love that. Knowing who you are, knowing what you love and what you stand for.

We also love it that the Melbourne store is a full-body experience. Not a single screen in sight. This shop has that same captivating, entrancing theatrical feel as the Sydney shop, but no-one entering the store would think of “retail theatre” here either.

Instead, the guests are inhaling the scents, admiring the displays, watching the demonstrations, tasting the samples, chatting with each other and with the team members. They are participating, engaging and enjoying.

Anthony Puharich is a fourth-generation butcher and the family’s meat distribution company, Vic’s Premium Quality Meat, established in 1996, has become Australia’s leading distributor of high-quality meat. The Pucharichs come to the meat business with high credentials.

But what has been so delightful is their retail success in a category that has not been seen as sexy or interesting. So when their Sydney store opened, it drew a lot of attention including winning prestigious retail design prizes in competitions where butcher shops had never even participated before let alone won.

We believe that when you do something well and actually do it for real, not just to draw attention or make money, you stand out. People can tell the difference. Even in today’s crazy competitive retail world. Perhaps especially in today’s crazy retail world. Tuija Seipell 

The post Victor Churchill Butcher Shop, Melbourne, Australia appeared first on The Cool Hunter Journal.

Blue Bottle Coffee the American chain established by musician James Freeman in California in 2002, has opened its first permanent store in Osaka, Japan. Now owned by the global consumer-brand giant Nestle, the chain opened its first three Japanese stores in 2015 in Tokyo and it now has about 20 stores in total in Japan. In Osaka, before opening this permanent store, Blue Bottle had a quick month-long pop-up of cold beverages at the Daimaru Osaka/Umeda department store in July this year.

The Osaka café is located on the first and ground floors of a new concrete-and-glass building in the Chayamachi district. The area is known as having a historically rich cultural mix of arts, theaters and broadcasting stations, and it also includes office towers and other commercial facilities.

The café was designed by Tokyo-based Studio I IN www.i-in.jp, who founded the studio in 2018, has created a minimalist fusion of many influences in the 345-square-metre (3,713 sq.ft) Osaka café. The strong Japanese tea culture of the area, the minimalist, blue-glass-bottle dominated graphic language of the brand, and the desire to separate the two levels of the café, each with its own vibe – all of this influenced the clean, almost sterile feel of the café where the main materials are glass, stainless steel and concrete.

The first level is open and spacious with wood and stainless steel dominating the otherwise sparse space that also has the obvious Blue Bottle brand accents of blue glass. The second level is infused with a digital overlay created by Tokyo-based Panoramatiks. According to the designers, customers sitting in this upper-level area will encounter a “sensory experience where music and images ’fall’ from the ceiling.”

Blue Bottle cafes all sport the minimalist blue bottle logo. According to the company website, the name stems from a historic tale that involves coffee beans and heroics, and led to the establishment of the first-ever central-European coffee-house in Vienna called Blue Bottle. This tale does not divulge why the café was so called but that is how the American chain, some 300-plus years later was named Blue Bottle.

In all, Blue Bottle Coffee has about 100 cafes in major US and Japanese cities plus a couple in Seoul and Hong Kong. Like all companies following consumer trends, Blue Bottle Café has announced its commitment to sustainability. Blue Bottle commits to carbon neutrality by 2024 according to Karl Strovnik, CEO of Blue Bottle Coffee, quoted on Nestle’s website last month. Tuija Seipell

Photography Tomoki Kengaku

The post Blue Bottle Café, Osaka, Japan appeared first on The Cool Hunter Journal.

The need to upgrade the design of medical and dental offices has been talked and written about for at least three decades. Yet real change has not taken place. Certainly not in the non-luxury world. From the customer perspective, most are still boring, bland and decidedly “medical.” Yes, we understand the need for hygiene and procedural and protocols and requirements, but is there a law about everything needing to be boring and slightly scary-looking as well?

The medical world is traditional and conservative. Perhaps the need to be, and appear to be, trustworthy and reliable has been confused with boring? We have encountered this attitude many times and it is evidenced, for example, in the design of new tools and devices as well. They evoke anxiety and fear, rather than comfort and healing.

We are not advocating frivolity here or silliness but instead we look for a bit of true customer-focus, comfort, convenience and visual pleasure. We are looking for design that reflects wellness rather than sickness, comfort rather than fear.

In the Ruixiang Dental Clinic, occupying a street-front location in the prosperous city of Rui’an in Wenzhou City, China, Chinese design firm JACKY.W Design has achieved some of what we are looking for. The lightness and friendliness of the clinic creates a resemblance to a spa more than to a medical facility.

The smart use of features such as soft lighting, light wood and rounded corners, creates a comforting ambiance that is further enhanced with the natural-tone furnishings and home-like accents, such as small natural-wood side tables and plants. However, the goal is not to be homey, rather the focus is on comfort and ease.

The 194 square-metre (2,088 sq. ft) space includes a large reception and waiting area, four treatment rooms, a consulting room and six functional rooms that include the disinfection room and the equipment room. We do not see any evidence that this design direction would somehow undermine the professionalism and expertise of the doctors and expert staff working at the clinic. We hope to see more of this and soon. Tuija Seipell

Images WYAP

The post Ruixiang Dental Clinic, Wenzhou City, Zheijang Province, China appeared first on The Cool Hunter Journal.

Berlin-based design and architecture firm Gonzalez Haase AAS has reportedly channelled New York artist Gordon Matta-Clark’s ‘building cuts’ into MDC Next Door, their latest retail space collaboration with the MDC Cosmetic brand. Matta-Clark expressed his ‘anarchitecture’ in the mid 1970s New York with chain saws and sledgehammers, cutting holes into long-since cleaned-up downtown warehouses and slicing homes in half.

However, Gonzalez Haase’s work with the distinctly feminine MDC Melanie Dal Canton Cosmetics is less violent or dramatic. The space itself on the ground floor of a late 19th century listed residential building is decidedly basic, as are the fixtures. The drama comes from the cut outs and the round shapes and mirrors that repeat in the ceilings and fixtures. More markedly, it is the colours that draw attention. The original ceiling mouldings add an ornate contrast to the highly Instagrammable candy-coloured environment.

The design firm and the Berlin-based MDC brand have worked together as the cosmetic brand has grown from the initial MDC Cosmetic Berlin store in the leafy-green Prenzlauer Berg district on Diedenhofer Straße.

It was followed by adding MDC Cure Berlin and now, earlier this year the latest addition, MDC Next Door. The brand has developed from a cosmetics and treatment concept into a tightly curated exploratory lifestyle brand where individual cosmetics, fragrance and treatments are juxtaposed with art, jewelry and other objects. 

MDC Next door is a cabinet of curiosities that brand founder Melanie dal Canton says is expressing the pandemic-era need for small indulgencies and beautiful surroundings. To start, dal Canton is cooperating with two Berlin-based artists: illustrator Kitty Kahane by offering her hand-painted porcelain pieces, and jewellery designer Sabrina Dehoff by showing her jewellery.

Interesting synergy has brought in coffee beans of the family-owned plantation of Gesa Hotzen that manages the sales in the German Branch of the traditional apothecary brand, Florence-based 80-store Santa Maria Novella www.smnovella.com in Munich. Melanie del Canton’s MDC manages that store as well and she has been a long-time fan of the brand whose products and treatments are available at all of MDC shops.

Curation and synergy have been part of del Canton’s business credo since the beginning. MDC Next Door is most likely just another addition to the carefully expanding lifestyle brand.  Tuija Seipell.

Photographs by Mirko Zander

The post MDC Next Door, Berlin, Germany appeared first on The Cool Hunter Journal.

Chinese cosmetics firm Harmay began in 2013 as an online-only operation selling its own brand and international imports via the Alibaba-owned shopping platform Taobao.

By 2015, company CEO Damien Zhong was convinced that a real-life Harmay shopping experience would fit perfectly into the lifestyles of the brand’s young and adventurous target clientele. This was not the opinion many held about the future of cosmetics retailing. Many were predicting the end of brick-and-mortar stores in this category.

Now, having just opened Harmay’s newest store in the mainly underground shopping centre at the completely reconfigured Xidan Cultural Plaza in Beijing, Zhong has been proven to be more than right. Harmay’s customer base is steadily growing and this, the brand’s sixth retail store, is yet another testimony to the correctness of its bold approach to cosmetics retailing and to retail design specifically.

As all of the Harmay stores, the new 880 square-metre (9,473 sq. ft) store was designed by Shanghai-based AIM Architecture. The store’s theme is ‘chaos and order’ and the designers channelled the underground location by imagining an apocalyptic space ship dug up from the deep soil of Beijing.

The unassuming front entrance does not predict what is inside. There is a crude, steam-punky feel of dark, industrial toil in the main ‘factory’ hall where a row of wheel barrows and a 14-metre-long metal work table are laden with product. There are chains and rails above, funnels and fans on the sides, all part of the faux factory setup that invites the customer to “work” on the conveyer belt and touch the products on the long counter.

In total contradiction to this, there are areas of over-lit whiteness, starkly sterile, Space Odyssey-like spaces with scarce product displays in extreme order on unadorned shelves. Unpredictability is one of the hallmarks the Harmay brand’s.

What is also remarkable in all of Harmay’s stores is the dissimilarity between them. Each has its own visual language that channels the location but also tells a fun story and invites discovery. In the Hong Kong store the inspiration was a traditional apothecary but interpreted in a new way. One of the Shanghai stores was inspired by what the space was before – a hotel kitchen. The first Beijing store took its inspiration from an airport with ‘luggage’ belts and check-in counters.

What is consistent in all Harmay stores is that the customers are left alone to test and touch and experience shopping in a tactile and participatory way with no pushy sales people hovering above them.

The name Harmay comes from CEO Damien Zhong’s favourite Chinese treat, prune-flavoured gum drops called hua mei tang – -tangy, sour and sweet. Loosely phoneticized, hua mei sounds like Harmay. The brand now has two stores in Shanghai, two in Beijing, one in Chengdu and one in Hong Kong.

AIM Architecture was established in 2005 by Wendy Saunders and Vincent de Graaf. Saunders was born in Bruges, Belgium, and graduated from architecture school in Ghent. Dutch-born De Graaf holds a Masters in Interior Design from Maastricht and a Masters in Architecture and Urban Planning in Amsterdam. Tuija Seipell

The post Harmay Cosmetics Store, Xidan Cultural Plaza, Beijing, China appeared first on The Cool Hunter Journal.

Australian men’s hair salon and barbershop brand Men’s Culture has recently opened a new salon in Sydney. The now two-salon brand has again trusted the design of its shop to Sydney-based Adam Burns, founder of MADA Studio.

The Men’s Culture MLC is located on the sixth floor of the iconic Sydney Central Business District landmark tower, the Bauhaus-style MLC Centre. In the tiny, 27 square-metre (290 sq.f t), T-shaped, windowless space, the designers did not have much room to maneuver yet they opted for a darkly masculine colour scheme and strong, solid materials and shapes.

Four hair/grooming stations, two shampoo chairs, sinks, a washing machine, a hot-towel machine and retail shelves all had to fit into the small space and still leave room for the team to work freely and the clients to not feel claustrophobic.

MADA Studio solved the dilemma with a skin that wraps around the space and incorporates the key operational elements within it. Textured metal, concrete and mirrors create a slightly reflective, space-enhancing feel and the monolithic galvanized-steel cupboard with its curved edges at the back gives a visual focal point. The curved corners also draw attention to the exposed piping and rough concrete walls, which in turn helps create a sense of height and space. Much of the clutter is hidden behind the sliding panels which further enhances the sense of clarity and order.

We like the contrasting warmth that comes from the inspired bur sparse use of walnut, brass and marble. Perhaps the cleverest of all material and colour choices in this space is the warm-hued cork flooring. It gives an overall soft and light surface and because it matches the colour of the shopping centre’s travertine marble flooring, it gives the shop an impressively spacious-looking “decompression” area at the entrance.

The MCL Centre was designed in 1972-1975 by the late Austrian-born Australian architect Harry Seidler. With its glass and  white concrete and quartz, the tower is a sculptural testament to the vision of one of Australia’s leading Modernist architects. But it is also a living part of the city and with its $170-million facelift and re-development the Centre has 6,000 square metres (64,583 sq. ft) of new or redeveloped retail space spanning four levels. It also includes 67 floors of office space.

The first Men’s Culture shop, also designed by MADA Studio, is located in the Haymarket neighbourhood in Darling Square’s bustling Steam Mill Lane. Tuija Seipell

Images by Stuart Hughes

The post Men’s Culture MLC Centre – Sydney, Australia appeared first on The Cool Hunter Journal.