Camper Shanghai | Schemata Architects

This project is for Camper Shanghai, a street-level store in Hengshanfang, a former French settlement where old Western-style buildings have been renovated into a cultural center with bookstores, boutiques, and cafes.

We first thought about reworking the design we had made for the Camper store at Shin-Marunouchi Building in 2017, but decided not to, since it has already been four years since its completion. After four years, the demands of society have definitely changed. We felt the need to fine-tune our design, and the idea of "recycling" came to mind. Then, as inappropriate as it may be to think this way, we even imagined what would happen in the future: the store would be destroyed and disappear. With this in mind, we decided to construct the display stands with reusable materials rather than non-reusable ones. The tops of the display stands, which were made of urethane rubber in the Shin-Marunouchi Building store, were replaced in the Shanghai store with a reusable material, that is, recycled cardboard from Camper shoe boxes. And instead of the cork imported from distant Portugal that we used in the Shin-Marunouchi Building, we made benches and tables by combining commonly available plywood. 

We learned one thing from the process. While it may be a common knowledge, cardboard is stuck together with a plant-based glue. So, it can be dissolved in water again, and then dried to harden. The material that we often take for granted in our daily lives turned out to be an ideal material for a recycling society, and this project was a renewed pursuit of design using the material. 

Architect: Jo Nagasaka / Schemata Architects 

Project team: Koh Seki, Shota Miyasita, Manato Kiriya

Location: 890 Shudefang Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai City Shudefang Building No. 5 (× Tianping Road)

Usage: Shop

Construction: Dragon Decoration & Engineering Co, Ltd/北京有龙金胜装饰工程有限责任公司 　　　　　 　　　　　　

Collaboration：Cynthia Xin Du (ARB)

Number of stories: 3F

Floor area: 268.938㎡(1F 89.646㎡　2F 89.646㎡)

Structure: RC

Date of completion: September 2021

Photo：Benik / Schemata Architects