Colourful chocolate bars are displayed in a transparent chest of drawers in this Tokyo shop designed by Japanese studio Nendo for a Belgian chocolatier. The project is the latest in a string of chocolate-related designs by the studio led by Oki Sato. The designer created a lounge area surrounded by a cascade of 2,000 chocolate-coloured pipes at Maison&Objet, where he received the trade fair's Designer of the Year award earlier this year.

The presentation reminds us of our METALOCUS issue on paper, gorgeous play of colors, squares and cubes.

The first overseas shop for BbyB., designed by Nendo, the chocolate shop by Antwerp-based, two-Michelin star chef Bart Desmidt. With their bar form, BbyB.’s chocolates may look the same from the outside, but they come in 30 richly distinctive flavours, from strawberry, pepper and lemon to passionfruit and basil. Because the chocolates are all the same shape, the packaging is modular: five bars of chocolate slot neatly into each sliding box, and five boxes slot together into a cube. The contents become apparent only gradually, as the boxes are opened and closed, offering surprises until the very last bite and turning the cube into a ‘magic chest of drawers’.

Following this logic, we turned the shop space into a three-dimensional version of the chocolate packaging. The chocolates seem to float in a transparent ‘chest of drawers’, placed at the centre of the shop. When they purchase chocolates, customers slide the chest and remove them by themselves just like the chocolate packaging.

Towards the rear of the shop, the transparent chest becomes a showcase that displays chocolates individually, then turns into a counter for customers at the shop’s cafe. The shop is a long, narrow space, well-suited to accommodate a 12.5 m long piece of furniture. "We made the front of the shop entirely white and the cafe space at the rear entirely black, following the colour scheme of the packaging cube, and ‘tiled’ the white wall with chocolate packages so that the entire wall turns into another ‘drawer’. The design creates a seamless transition between the shop space, the packaging and the act of eating the chocolates, offering an organic, compelling experience."

 

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Nendo is a design office founded by Oki Sato in Tokyo, in 2002, which work spans architecture, interiors, productos and graphics, and has won international design awards.

Oki Sato was born in Canada in 1977 and studied architecture at Waseda University, graduating top of his class in 2000. He earned his master's degree from Waseda in 2002 and founded design studio Nendo that same year.

With multidisciplinary studios in Tokyo and Milan, Oki's work spans a wide range of fields, such as architecture, product design, and branding, and has been recognized internationally with awards on several occasions, including in Italy, France, and the UK where he was named Designer of the Year. His recent major projects include the Tokyo 2020 Olympic cauldron, and he is also involved in the design of the new TGV trains for France's high-speed rail network.

A jury member of iF award, 2010. Lecturer for Waseda University, Tokyo; “Designer of the Year” (Wallpaper* magazine): “Designer of the Year” (ELLE DECO International Design Awards), 2012. “Guest of honor” (Toronto Interior Design Show); “Guest of honor” (Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair), 2013. “Designer of the Year” (Maison & Objet); “Interior Designers of the Year” (Iconic Awards); “CHANGE MAKER OF THE YEAR 2015” (Nikkei Online), 2015. A producer of World Design Capital Taipei; Jury Chair for the Golden Pin Design Award, 2016.

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Published on: March 27, 2015
Cite: "New BbyB boutique at Ginza by Nendo" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/new-bbyb-boutique-ginza-nendo> ISSN 1139-6415
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