How a global brand designed a store around Hangzhou's bridges

Transcript

A bridge gets you across the water, but it can also reveal a Chinese way of thinking about design. Welcome back to Chinese retail design episode 2. Today, let's see how Isopangjo captures the most authentic local spirit of the city. It didn't start with West Lake or Lotus Flower. It started with the most ordinary thing you can imagine. The bridge and the stone. Marko Paul described Hangzhou as the city with 12,000 stone bridges in his travel walk. But what's truly special about this is how they were built. Ancient builders never had grand design. They built with what the mountain gave them and let the stone's own character shape the bridge. That is the Gao Hu's stone, queried from the hills nearby, rough in texture, but dense and durable with centuries of city memories. Used in not only bridges, but also roads and temples. The idea behind this is strunging, respond to adapt. In Chinese wisdom, that is to work in harmony with words already there, rather than trying to change it. With this in mind, you can see exactly how the idea lives inside Isopangjo. Gao Hu's stone appears in three distinct forms. First, raw quarry stone. Naturally fractured in texture forms the colonnade and central sink. Then, polished slabs reveal the green in benches. And finally, hammer stone paved the floor in rippling patterns. You encounter the same material through washing, sitting and walking. Not a single piece is to carve look like a bridge, but every piece carries the spirit of the city. That is strunging, responding to the qualities and conditions already present and where the real design intelligence lines. In the end, design steps back, making room for what the place and material can contribute. Follow for more design breakdowns like this.

Transcribed automatically from the video, so small errors are possible.