Ziinlife Beijing Store

Atelier tao+c has transformed an old textile warehouse into a showroom for ZIIN, an emerging furniture brand. The project site is part of Langyuan Station, which features warehouse with pitched roof and brick walls built in the 60s from last century. Two intersected square frameworks were erected, meticulously rotated at 45 degree, staying sole as an individual structure while also connected to the original brick wall, which forms a separate “house within a house” journey. Atelier tao+c sought to balance the relation between the existing site with new functions, exhibition and sale, background and objects in the aged industrial space. The two interlaced frameworks were treated divergently in transparent and solid, establishing a crystal-like structure. Comparatively being positioned at 45 degree, the diagonal direction marks a new spatial order and circulation, enriching the depth both visually and experientially.The negative space, in between the existing brick walls and the new frameworks, that flows along the perimeter, introducing the notion of “semi-interior and semi-exterior”. From the steel structure, timber frame, the substructure of walls to the assembled finish panels, every component is visible and traceable. They are both the structure and the finish, recording both the design process and the construction process, vividly telling the story of how the frameworks were built. Common industrial materials, particularly standard steel beam, profiles, timber and bricks, make up the finish of project structure regardless of cost and grading, roughness or smoothness. By adopting this material selection, we aspire to eliminate the hierarchy, simultaneously making no distinctions in Ziin Store. This is an effective cost-control project that uses basic formal logic, mundane materials and construction techniques to deliver a deep expression of adaptive re-use space and details.