Held earlier this year at Jing in the Japanese capital, the Louis Vuitton & exhibition comprised ten immersive spaces conceived to highlight the intersection between the fashion house and Japanese artists. The fashion house tapped SugawaraDaisuke Architects to complete the visitor journey with an engaging gift-shop space. Adopting the same colourful scheme as the rest of the museum, the architects devised a composition of vibrant, shiny columns to expand the area’s volume.

Experimenting with ‘happy colours’ and forms enabled them to create an environment reminiscent of a bamboo forest – one different in every vantage point based on the lighting and activities going on outside the building. Acknowledging that many visitors would be coming to the exhibition after months of pandemic-induced isolation at home, their intention with the neon landscape was to bring a sense of outdoors inwards as people browsed the products on display.

Frame’s take
Gift shops can often be rather dull, especially in stark comparison to visually inspiring shows. Not this one. Appreciably considerate of the need for joyful spatial experiences after a year spent at home, the design presents the Louis Vuitton brand in a fun, approachable way. The column-based architecture of the retail area echoes the exhibition building itself, and boldly translates the scheme of the show, expressing continuity from the start of the visitor journey to finish.