All images © toha courtesy DDAA
Hender Scheme’s flagship store in Kansai is an adaptive reuse of a sixty-plus-year-old one-story wooden house near Umeda Station in Osaka. With a spacious area of around 175m² and impressive high ceilings, the store has been designed to reflect Hender Scheme’s unique aesthetic while honoring the building’s history. The goal was to create a retail space that serves as an extension of their fashion and product design approach.
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Founded in 2010 by Ryo Kashiwazaki, Hender Scheme is an inventive footwear and accessories label created in response to mass-produced clothing. DDAA, the design team, embraced Hender Scheme’s production approach of ‘remixing’ – utilizing everyday items like classic sneakers as motifs, and applying leather shoe making techniques to superimpose leather parts on existing products. Although working in different genres, DDAA resonated with this creative mindset of transforming the way we perceive our surroundings.
Projects like this are typically referred to as, ‘Kaisou‘ meaning ‘refurbishment’. However, the client affectionately referred to this undertaking as ‘Kasou,’ meaning ‘addition.’ This term captures the essence of the project, as it embraces the existing elements while seamlessly incorporating a new layer without altering them. The architects proposed adding a new layer equipped with all the necessary fixtures for the store, without modifying the existing elements such as glass windows.
DDAA chose a white background to showcase the products on mounted on walls. Rather than a simple coat of paint, they mixed white pigment with epoxy resin to create a rough texture resembling icicles. When viewed from a distance, the white lines extend over the existing building, and up close, they reveal subtle nuances and different meanings.
The floor-mounted fixtures are finished in concrete, matching with the existing floor and hence giving it a monolithic feel. The elegant polished finish of the concrete floor, exposing its aggregates, harmonizes with the exposed lighting and fixtures, which intentionally disregards the existing building.
The newly transformed space preserves the building’s history while infusing it with Hender Scheme’s contemporary vision. Customers are welcomed into an atmosphere that seamlessly blends the past and the present, inviting them to explore the crafted offerings of the brand.
Hender Scheme Flagship Store, Osaka
3 Chome-8-17 Toyosaki, Kita Ward, Osaka, 531-0072
