Chinese studio Dongqi Design has turned a disused factory in Shanghai into a multi-brand fashion and lifestyle store, adding glossy marble and metal surfaces to offset its exposed concrete shell.
Set across three floors, the XC273 retail space houses designer showrooms and pop-ups alongside a small cafe, as well as providing spaces for temporary exhibitions and events.
Dongqi Design has turned a former factory into a fashion boutique
Formerly a state-owned towel factory, the building had already been changed several times before the latest round of renovations.
Dongqi Design strived to preserve and emphasise these different layers of history, which are contrasted against shiny new finishes to create a kind of "nostalgic futurism". "All the differences of the space were kept as part of the building's history so that people walking in could feel that the boundaries between the past and the present are blurred, as if they had walked into a timeless space," the studio explained.
The XC273 store houses a cafe alongside designer showrooms and pop-ups
The building is organised around three voids, which now form the basis of the store's circulation routes.
The largest of these voids consists of a double-height space at the core of the building, where Dongqi Design added a small reflecting pool surrounded by a collonade.
Glossy surfaces are contrasted against the building's raw concrete shell
The collonade's raw concrete columns are left exposed where they face t...