Skate culture comes to Shenzhen by way of an experiential interior that celebrates the sport’s social nature.

Key features
Moc Design Office’s store design for local brand Sixty-six taps into the fun of skateboarding and surfskating, a branch of the sport that allows surfers to train on land. Located on the west side of retail park OCT OH Bay, the shop is surrounded by palm trees, giving the feel of quintessential Southern California skateparks. A coffee kiosk is accessible from the exterior, connected to an internal bar. Indoors, a circular track inhabits the 6.5-m-high space, with a pump track on one side and a bowl on the other. Orange and grey are the primary project colours.

The pump track organically separates the space – an inner ring offers semi-enclosed stepped seating for people to sit and talk while taking a break. Also promoting interaction is the outer ring, which serves as a product display and exhibition area. Bright white ring-shaped ceiling lighting mirrors these forms. There are only a few fixed display areas – most of the props were designed to be flexible, making use of recognizable skate parts. Moc Design Office used 4,500 wheels to create a statement dot-matrix wall, for instance, which can be adapted to showcase different branding and collaborations.

FRAME’s take
The popularity of streetwear has seen luxury retailers including Dior and Siam Discovery bring skate culture to stores and runways, something sport-specific brands like Vans and Supreme once held ownership over. Is this just a passing trend, or a phenomenon with real staying power? Skateboarding’s influence on pop culture fashion is well known, but the activity’s emergence in spatial design also reflects our deep post-COVID craving for community, with parks a mascot of dynamic urban gathering. While Sixty-six’s store is not a public space, it does carve out a community-specific area for people to come together offline, putting product sales secondary to connection. That, without a doubt, should be a key focus for retailers right now – no matter the in-store activity on offer.