The new retail concept for C.P. Company is developed from a functional idea that turns into an aesthetic statement. All the shop walls are covered with birch plywood panels, separated horizontally by strips of last generation extremely strong transparent 3M Velcro. This “intelligent” wall concept is designed to support aluminum lacquered white shelves and panels hosting hanging and folded garments as well as lights and communication tools like photos and graphics.

Therefore every wall become a support to stow an endless variations of merchandise/communication tools. A kit of various elements permits to create different configurations: shelves in different sizes, panels with regular or frontal hanging, mirrors, graphic panels, lamps. The flexibility of this display system, besides allowing different configurations according to periods or quantity of merchandise to be exposed, becomes also the mean to underline the true values of C.P. Company: formal simplicity, richness of the details, understatement.

Every material is interpreted in order to reach a tactile and figurative unusual originality. The floor in black waxed and laser-cut iron plates, is laid random as a parquet; the same iron plate is used to enrich furniture components (or furniture pieces) as tables and counters in contrast with white transparent glass and opaque lacquered white aluminum sheets. All the custom made furniture and fittings play with the contrast created by mixing raw and simple materials (iron plates, plywood) with the richness and care of the details.

The birch plywood of the paneling is whitened and treated with an opaque varnish to underline the natural feel of the material; the shelves and the panels in thin plates of opaque lacquered aluminum allow great strength as well as easy movement to fit them to the walls.

The light in the store is, on one hand, a technical element for the correct illumination of the merchandise, and on the other it becomes a sign of important visual character. A large suspended lit tube also becomes a structure upon which to hang clothes thanks to steel cables; the hooking system for the hangers draws inspiration from airplane safety belts.

The project, which was awarded following a competition, has created a new concept for the shops of the well-known brand of Italian clothing to be developed in a number of flagship stores in Milan, Rome. London, Paris, Tokyo and New York and a similar system for outlets in department stores. The design system is conceived as an extension of the contents and formal and technological values of the C.P. Company, through the use of innovative materials and flexible solutions which allow for quick alterations to the shop’s fittings and image.

This is made possible by the use of Velcro strips attached to plexiglas and marine plywood, which are used as the supporting elements for the aluminium display shelves which can be easily arranged in different positions. Velcro strips are used to design the space and represent the technological innovation. The first completed examples are a number of outlets in Asian shopping malls in Shanghai, Tianjin, Daegu, in Japan and in the historic Rinascente store in Milan.

Designed by Park Associati

http://www.arthitectural.com/park-associati-cp-company-shops-system/