[button link=”https://www.arredanegozi.it/2019/09/retail-design-il-lato-a-dei-negozi/” icon=”none” target=”” color=”a30b0b” textcolor=”ffffff”]TESTO ITALIANO[/button]
From the O Bag brand to Benetton from Australia to Kazakistan, Laboratorio.Quattro shows revolutionary ideas on store-design, focusing on modularity and the continuity between the inside-outside space.
Laboratorio.Quattro is an architectural and design firm based in Milan, Italy. Since 2014 it has thought and released more than 250 new stores for O Bag, the iconic brand internationally known for its peculiar bags and accessories.
Stefania, Luca and Matteo (the three designers of Laboratorio.Quattro) projected the whole layout of the new O Bag stores, through a different management and conception of space, in order to spot the way of exposure. They started with a bunch of temporary-shops for O Bag, nowadays the signed new concept-stores. First in Venice, then all over the five continents.
Laboratorio.Quattro moved from working with serial modules (handcrafted by selected artisans) in order to reduce costs while developing the brand-identity. New O Bag stores had to become cult-places themselves, not only containing cult-products. Personality, elegance, originality and ductility had to be proper topics to the stores as well as to products.
“The O Bag stores design has been a fascinating challenge”, says Stefania Braga. “We have faced a transversal effort, thinking the retail space the same way we had previously thought the design of accessories and fashion collections. So as to have in the stores the same module-approach the brand was famous for”, Stefania continues.
Another peculiar characteristic of the O Bag stores is the deep relationship between the inside-outside space: they have no windows, or at least they have no usual shopping windows. They are windows, so to become a sort of extension of the street they are placed in and create a unique architectural effect.
“Working for a long time in the retail-side of commerce, through fashion or nightlife clubs, gave us the right experience and background to realize functional and original stores for O Bag”, Luca Veltri adds. “Stores which could easily and at best represent style and personality of an already world-wide famous brand”.
Before O Bag, Laboratorio.Quattro had already worked side by side with other internationally known brands. In 2007 Benetton asked Laboratorio.Quattro to re-imagine its stores in Russia. Shortly later Cierresse, the renowned group of furniture supplier, called Laboratorio.Quattro to start a four hands collaboration which gave as results the new location of the historical restaurant Moscatelli in Corso Garibaldi, in the middle of the Milanese fashion district. As well as other clubs in Florence, Naples and San Diego.
by AN shopfitting magazine no.152 ©
