The design concept revolves around one bold insertion – the stained-oak wooden box that stands vertically through two stories of the store. This structure provides a strong visual identity for the retail brand, while creating warmth and a sense of domesticity in its wooden weaving, which took cue from the stitchings on a shoe. Various punched openings in the box surface reveal a thick and luscious RED world inside, hinting at a strange inner sanctum. ...Collapse

The wooden box functions as the main storage area for the shoe store, something that is often an after-thought, or at least tucked away behind hidden spaces. This subversive gesture offers a new way of thinking about retail space, and celebrates an extremely active and significant feature of the mundane retail business—storage. This red storage sanctum now becomes the pulsating heart of the store, emanating vitality, and negotiating between the shopper and the sales staff from shoe to shoe. In front of the wooden box is a carefully composed facade of brass-framed-window glass. This is set back to allow some relief on the narrow Wellington Street, attempting to reinvigorate this urban strip. The scale of the store window is broken down to be more informal, engaging the human scale as well as serving as a sharp contrast to the monolithic wooden box beyond. Although the total aesthetic is one of classic modernism, certain sensitive attentions to detail, material and scale contribute to inject a level of intimacy and warmth for the shopper to experience while searching for that perfect pair of shoes ...Collapse