Project Overview

ANTA SNEAKERVERSE has opened a store in TaiKoo Li Sanlitun, Beijing. With its spatial storytelling centered around hutong culture, the project ingeniously integrates Eastern aesthetics and modern design trends. It aims to create a distinctive “neo-Beijing” vibe in the ever-evolving fashion hub, offering consumers an immersive retail space.

Organisation

Anta (China) Co., Ltd

Team

Anta (China) Co., Ltd

Project Brief

The project takes deep crimson and pine green as main colours, and makes innovations across architectural language, material selection, and cultural symbolism, constructing a visual system that fully embodies gorgeous, elegant Eastern aesthetics.

The facade combines traditional brass lion-head door knockers with modern glass curtain walls, while the rusty metal frame replicates the weathered lintels common in hutongs; inside, the integration of the cashier desk and the storeroom, paired with the use of the view framing technique, creates an efficient and aesthetically pleasing dialogue window. The project not only provides a new paradigm for retail space design but also redefines the symbiosis of tradition and modernity, transforming Beijing’s cultural legacy into tangible symbols in the context of modern consumption.

Project Innovation/Need

Spatial Structure: The facade marries traditional brass lion-head door knockers with glass curtain walls, reinterpreting the ceremonial symbol commonly used for the gate of the Siheyuan (quadrangle). The rounded brass component echoes door studs typical of hutongs, while the rusty metal frame replicates the weathered texture of lintels common in hutongs. Inside, the cashier desk and storeroom combo is delineated from the retail space through symmetrical curved walls and the view framing technique. The surroundings are all reflected in the mirror-polished stainless steel ceiling to merge the virtual world with the real one, reminiscent of grey space beneath the eaves of the Siheyuan. When customers pause before the shoe display wall, their reflections in the ceiling blur the boundary between virtuality and reality, integrating them into the spatial storytelling.

Colour Scheme: The velvet wallpaper in deep crimson and pine green, respectively inspired by the Forbidden City’s walls and the prince’s gardens, highlights Beijing’s luxurious material heritage. The parquet flooring in walnut brown mimics traditional courtyards’ geometric paver patterns, evoking a retro sense.

Light &Shadow: Warm spotlights applied to the curved shoe wall enhance product display. Deconstructionism-themed picture frames and the metal installation create an artistic counterpoint. At the centre, a suspended hemispherical LED screen dynamically shows the patterns of the Zaojin (caisson ceiling)—a result of the tailiang system (interlocking and lifting beams) in traditional temples. The interplay between the digital images on the screen and the lines of the mirror-polished ceiling creates an immersive Eastern aesthetic space, where virtuality and reality converge

Design Challenge

The biggest challenge was how to strike a balance between product display and culture-centred spatial storytelling in retail space design. This project deconstructs traditional cultural symbols—including door knockers of the Siheyuan, door studs typical of hutongs, and patterns of the Zaojin—into geometric forms, reinterpreting them through modern materials like glass, stainless steel, and rusty metal.

The result is a spatial language of “Rooted in Tradition, Cloaked in Modernity”. The skilful combination of deep crimson and pine green velvet wallpaper translates the classic colours of Beijing’s imperial architecture in a modern manner, while the symmetrical curved walls employ the view framing technique to partition sales and storage zones, ensuring the privacy of the storeroom and a smooth circulation of the retail space. The project enables consumers to trace the thread of history and sense the pulse of the future, creating a space where “local cultural memory” and “global consumption” coexist.

Tags

• #STG+