Ok, I can’t help but love this store as, during school, I designed a laundromat that prominently featured/used copper piping throughout, not only for the conveying of water but becoming lights, seats, and reading nooks.  It’s not used quite as much here, but the piping that feeds the central island – which also becomes a light fixture – is still a prominent enough element within the design.

Beyond those copper pipes, the rich, slick, red display cases and countertops (inspired by the red colour from cut bonito flakes (the store specializes in ingredients for dashi, the Japanese soup stock) are wonderful offsets to the rough and very raw concrete that forms the structure for this impossibly narrow building in Tokyo.  It’s a very focused store, with a very focused space within.

by Schemata Architects