Nendo designed the shop in Tokyo’s Ginza district as the first overseas store for BbyB – the chocolate company set up by Antwerp-based Michelin-star chef Bart Desmidt.

The colourful packaging of BbyB’s flavoured chocolate are displayed like paint swatches, arranged within a perspex case that runs through the centre of the long, narrow space. “Because the chocolates are all the same shape, the packaging is modular: five bars of chocolate slot neatly into each sliding box, and five boxes slot together into a cube,” said Nendo. The designers replicated this idea and created a grid of sliding transparent drawers to display the square packets organised by colour. “We turned the shop space into a three-dimensional version of the chocolate packaging,” said Nendo. “The chocolates seem to float in a transparent ‘chest of drawers’, placed at the centre of the shop.”

Customers pull out the drawers to select their preferred flavour from options including strawberry, pepper, lemon, passionfruit and basil. The design of chocolate packaging is also printed onto white tiles, which cover the wall behind the display case. The white interior is inverted at the back of the store, where a dark cafe provides a seating area for customers to sample their chocolate with a coffee. A counter that begins in the shop as another presentation area extends into the cafe to form the bar. A short break in the surface accommodates the glass partition that divides the two areas. “The design creates a seamless transition between the shop space, the packaging and the act of eating the chocolates, offering an organic, compelling experience,” said Nendo.

The project is the latest in a string of chocolate-related designs by the studio led by Oki Sato. The designer created a lounge area surrounded by a cascade of 2,000 chocolate-coloured pipes at Maison&Objet, where he received the trade fair’s Designer of the Year award earlier this year. To mark the occasion, Nendo also created a set of chocolates that included treats with pointed tips, hollow interiors and rough textures. The studio has previously designed a set of chocolate pencils and an ice cream cake topped with a group of small chocolate houses.

via Dezeen