The Playhouse Tokyo Shops, Aoyama Fashion Retail Units, Japanese Commercial Architecture Photos
The Playhouse in Aoyama, Tokyo
22 Mar 2021
The Playhouse – Aoyama Fashion Store
Architects: PAN- PROJECTS
Location: Tokyo, Japan

The Playhouse is a full renovation project of 3 stories high building locates in a busy fashion district of Tokyo, Aoyama in Japan. The building accommodates a British fashion store on the ground and first level, and a hall for a wedding and event planning company on the second level. Our design team was challenged to envision a new spatial model of Post-COVID store by reconsidering the existing function of physical shops.

One of the impacts caused by the global coronavirus pandemic is a remarkable acceleration of digitalization. This ongoing rapid movement indicates the future in which the shopping experience will be greatly more common to be done through virtual stores.
In response to this social situation, the team proposed to reimagine the spatial function of the physical store from a conventional concept of a place to purchase goods into a place to learn, discover and experience the cultures related to the brands of products. If the act of purchase can be done virtually, the ultimate purpose of a physical store should be to elevate potential customers? interest which will connect them to product sales.

The project is started by considering the whole building as an alternative form of theatre by designing transformable architectural ele...