For its second physical store in Shanghai, MOMO ERA invited Atelier d’More to reinterpret its philosophy of “Comfort First, Aesthetics Follow” within the city’s Qiantan district. Known as a rising hub for neo-luxury lifestyles, Qiantan is dominated by glass-box retail façades that project uniformity but often lack warmth. Atelier d’More chose to resist this formula, crafting a space that communicates brand identity while reshaping how retail storytelling unfolds in commercial environments.
FASHION RETAIL
The design begins at the façade. Situated at a street-level corner facing a plaza garden, the site was constrained by a gas pipeline and an ineffective glass-box entrance. Atelier d’More transformed these challenges into opportunities: extending a cantilevered eave to draw the plaza indoors, carrying paving tiles across the threshold, and recessing a curved glass entrance into the elevation. The intervention dissolves the rigidity of the original façade, introducing asymmetry and an openness likened to a breeze carving its own path.
Inside, five adobe-red volumes anchor the store. Housing fitting rooms, storage, and displays, each volume narrows near the top to capture natural light, their tapered silhouettes recalling traditional cuán dǐng pavilion roofs. Rather than symmetrical balance, the forms are deliberately varied, incorporating apertures and light wells that evoke traces of wind brushing against surfaces. Even the intrusion of horizontal pipelines is absorbed into poetic archways, fusing necessity with design clarity.
The interior layout rejects linear shopping routes in favor of a meandering loop. Volumes stretch, twist, and link together to create a semi-connected sequence of thematic display areas, nine fitting rooms, and a radial checkout. Dual entrances extend the browsing circuit, encouraging both exploration and efficiency. Above, soft light membranes ripple across the ceiling, dissolving angular geometries with a cloudlike weightlessness. In one fitting room, a skylight aperture suggests sunlight breaking through clouds, reinforcing the impression of being immersed in an atmosphere shaped by air.
Freestanding display shelves add another layer of spatial choreography. Twisting upward like tree trunks, they integrate shoes, bags, and eyewear into the flow of the store while maintaining open sight lines. Seating and platforms rise organically from the limestone floor, as though the ground itself has softly uplifted to meet the displays. The result is a spatial forest, earth and wind intertwining into a cohesive landscape.
Atelier d’More’s Qiantan store design for MOMO ERA reimagines retail as a sensorial journey: fluid, adaptive, and quietly resistant to the strictures of the “glass box.” It is a space that suggests movement even when still, a reminder to unbutton, to let air pass across the skin, and to rediscover ease within the speed of the city.
