DESIGN TEAMo

Xiaoqi plum wine shop(Chifeng street Projects)

Taipei City, Taiwan

Retail

50m²

2022.12 Completed

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to be involved in many Xiaoqi projects. Among them, the three shops we designed in 2022 on Chifeng street - a restaurant, a one-cup specialty shop and a plum wine shop - each selling different things, but located quite close to each other, and during the design process, the idea evolved from a single shop to a collection of shops.

Chifeng Street is close to Zhongshan Station in central Taipei and has a very attractive external space with its narrow alleys running parallel to each other and the gaps between the small buildings that connect them creating a maze-like space. The alleys are dotted with small independent shops, each with its own character that overflows into the alleyways.

At the first, a restaurant was commissioned. And, we designed to create synergy with an existing general store 'Xiaoqi shop' next door. Subsequently, Mori liquor shop, a one-cup specialty shop, and Xiaoqi plum wine shop were commissioned. As two new speciality shops were to be designed a few dozen metres from the restaurant, the idea was evolved to have the restaurant, the general store, the plum wine shop and the one-cup shop as sales areas in a virtual shop including the street. The problem was how to visualise the virtual shops, as it was not possible to actually set anything up on the street. Therefore, the design of the Mori liquor shop and the plum wine shop was given a strong identity different from that of the restaurant and the general store in order to give them a character as individual sales areas, and by designing all the shops with common materials, an attempt was made to create a connection in the mind of a single large shop (virtual shop).

The virtual shop space created in the consciousness in this Chifeng street leaves room for the addition of other sales areas (shops) in the future, making it possible to increase the number of shops with the same materials but with different identities. The general store, which was a point, becomes a line through the restaurant and a plane through the virtual shop, which spans Chifeng street, and functions as a commercial facility that allows for further expansion.