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Architects: Storeage
- Area: 3200 m²
- Year: 2021
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Photographs:Duo photography
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Lead Architect: Li Kang, Leendert Tange
Text description provided by the architects. Storeage, the Shanghai based Dutch retail design agency, worked with the Adidas team to create an innovative retail experience. Located at the Futian Galaxy Coco park, spanning over 3000 square meters and three floors, the store is host to all of Adidas latest technology and products. Worthy of all these product innovations the Storeage team paid specific attention to the façade, which wraps all that excitement in an architecturally woven skin, created very much to resembling the knitted technology that defines todays today’s performance footwear.
Created from a light-weight molded glass-fiber reinforced composite the façade fits the building tight, yet in the same time appears to be soft and gentle, comfortable the same as one would expect from his or her sports shoes. Almost in motion the façade lifts itself on ground level to reveal the entry points into to the store and opens up to give way to a gigantic 3D holographic screen displaying Adidas latest innovations.
Storeage worked together with RACE to detail the basic element that could act as the building stone for this specific façade design. Capturing the characteristics of strong wrapping and high ductility of the current adidas high-performance sports shoes, extracting the brand weaving pattern as the basic element, the design team developed a set of AI algorithms that simulate the growing, replicating and pausing of biological genes, allowing the pattern grows itself around the building, forming a skin layer that wraps the brand experience center. Through parametric architectural design, the skin coat and its basic units are 3D shaped and structurally calculated.
Exploring multiple patterns and undulations of the basic element, the final choice allowed us to create the perfect balance between perforation and material, between light and heavy, loose and tight, structural and comfortable, all at the same time” Kang Li, the managing director of Storeage China explains. In doing so the facade captured the spirit of Shenzhen, that Adidas was after. It connected Shenzhen as the major high-tech hub in China to nature, allowing the whole store to feel natural yet still high-tech, which is the perfect introduction to Adidas focus on sustainability and the environment through product innovation. The façade feels really powerful yet in the same time it fits as glove. Kind of all I expect from an Adidas product. Just perfect.
