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Architects: WeWantMore
- Area: 750 m²
- Year: 2019
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Photographs:BILD Studio
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Manufacturers: Vectorworks, Menu, Gavra, Muuto, Trimble Navigation, Van Besouw
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Lead Architects: Ruud Belmans
Text description provided by the architects. Yes, people do still buy their shoes offline. And no, finding that perfect pair within a sizable store doesn’t need to feel like a shoe overdose. Enter WeWantMore and their cubed approach on a large footwear store located in Ghent, Belgium. 750 m2 to be exact. A size that turned out the be the challenge as well as the solution for the design of the new KevinShoes store. The Antwerp based design studio divided, colour bombed and conquered, turning a substantial retail space into a cohesive cluster of tailored footwear zones.
An industrial venue this vast can easily feel overwhelming and cold. By creating distinct spaces within a space WeWantMore immediately dealt with that issue. You can still read the entire room in a flash upon entering, but once in a tailored zone, you feel cared for and catered to. Each of the dedicated zones offers a slightly different shopping experience.
The sneaker section is an installation made up out of 4400 blue bricks. The street vibe and neon lights included. The boutique area displaying a premium woman’s footwear feels a bit more intimate. It’s a secluded cube-shaped by a semitransparent wall of elastic ropes. 2600 m of lines are strung between a metal framework. The kids' areas are kids sized. Meaning: not reaching higher up than the actual height of a child, making up for two more playful, treasured zones. They are encircled by the outer lanes of the remaining women’s and men’s shoes. WeWantMore blended the entire cluster of planes and areas together by a vivid Yves Klein blue colour scheme.
The design studio consciously used non-solid materials to maintain an airy, yet cohesive atmosphere throughout the space. The bricks, ropes, and frames each add a certain feel to their zone but don’t prevent you from grasping the feeling of freedom and opportunity upon entering the store.
