© Choi Yong Joon
- Architects: LABOTORY
- Location: 517 Teheran-ro, Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea
- Lead Architects: Park Kee Min, Jung Jin Ho
- Other Participants: Yu Seoul Gi, Yang Jinju, Yoon Jeong Hwan
- Area: 105.0 m2
- Project Year: 2018
- Photographs: Choi Yong Joon
© Choi Yong Joon
“Beauty in B.O.W” is a women’s wellness editor shop to deliver healthy beauty for women who are keeping balance between work and life. This brand was launched as a Hyundai Department Store brand, and it is offering several product groups of M.D composition according to a wide range of categories related to women’s health and beauty matching certain standards in one place so that consumers can choose products according to their preference.
© Choi Yong Joon
NAMING
Beauty in B.O.W began from a white blank paper. It began with naming and branding with only the concept of living and beauty editor shop. Among a wide range of beauty concepts, healthy beauty is considered to keep a balance, so we thought that it is very important. We made the word B.O.W with this important point in mind.
B.O.W is a abbreviation for “Balance Of Women.” Literally, it refers to women’s balanced sense and by attaching the descriptive ‘Beauty in’, we tried to emphasize it is a beauty brand intuitively.
© Choi Yong Joon
BRANDING
When we think of a brand image, several things come into our mind. Who comes into our mind when we think of a beautiful woman with a balanced sense? If there is one, how would she manage her image and reveal it to others? She will be admired by many and to maintain such admiration, she will try to maintain her image through various methods and will reveal her designed appearance.
Accordingly, we designed the font to express the image of a spot-light woman with a comb pattern and we designed her with a font that delivers a balanced image that is not excessive.
Such designs could be used for B.O.W’s package/symbol/visual.
© Choi Yong Joon
Floor plan
© Choi Yong Joon
SPACE IDENTITY
The fundamental of Beauty in B.O.W is about balance, but it is difficult for actually-displayed M.D to be in uniformity or balance because products of different brands are displayed in one place by category. Because of this issue, we decided to place the main character in the space to give an impact and to express the rest in a general tone. In addition, to consider the location of the character, and the traffic of customers and servers, we needed to understand information related to M.D such as the composition and form of products, sales of product groups and main product groups.
© Choi Yong Joon
LAYOUT / DESIGN
To break away from the typical layout of department stores, we tried to remove customers’ stereotypes about uniform appearance of department stores and to suggest s unique traffic line compared to those of surrounding editor shops.
© Choi Yong Joon
First.
Unlike fashion editor shops, the disadvantage of beauty & living editor shops is having too many forms and categories of product groups. For that reason, customers cannot see what kinds of products are sold in one view intuitively. To resolve the problem, we place a strong impact in the space where customers approach first and we installed furniture where customers can see representative products of this brand to get a glimpse at the brand in this place. The shape of the furniture forms an overall traffic line which is then divided into sections with floor finishing materials in order to construct a basic traffic axis. The floor which is divided by the axis had a contrasting effect by using oak wood floor and trendy terrazzo tiles in order to remove boredom.
© Choi Yong Joon
Second.
In planning the layout, we needed to find out from our client which product group they focus most on and expect the highest sales from. This is because we must naturally place the main character of the space and suggest a design suitable for the product group.
© Choi Yong Joon
Among the brands which have shops in ‘Beauty in B.O.W’, a product which was trendily getting interest was Beauty Device. Unit cost was also high. With only simple shelves, such beauty devices cannot be sold easily. Due to relatively high prices, customers would want to try them personally and experience there performance before making a purchase. Based on these reasons, we placed an experience test space for beauty devices in the location for the main character, and we planned a space that has a contrasting effect with the surrounding mood.
© Choi Yong Joon
While planning a layout that shows a contrast between outside and inside, we also had to naturally provide a contrasting effect by using finishing materials and shapes. We used a bright and strong feeling of special paint for the outside while we used soft and warm materials for the inside to deliver a feeling of outer and inner skin. As such, the walls expressing the inside of the skin did not stop with a warm finishing material but were also designed to provide a more comfortable feeling for users by using a shape which can give a feeling of warmth by embracing users. By installing a bench and a mirror so that users can take selfies, users will be able to try the products more effectively in the space.
© Choi Yong Joon
Third .
Among the categories of beauty, living and fashion, fashion seemed to be the product group that would look the poorest when being displayed. We placed it on the back side of the store to make it unnoticeable by the entering traffic and we used a layout that placed a fitting room and mirrors to satisfy customers in terms of function.
© Choi Yong Joon
Fourth.
We needed a furnishing of a background that will provide a subdued mood for several categories with strong character. We placed wall furnishing for the living product group which needs to display relatively many products. We placed posts in the middle to provide divisions of products for customers to easily differentiate them while providing a long open space.
© Choi Yong Joon