Tsultrim Showroom / Beijing
Interior design project of the showroom of Tsultrim in Beijing
The Tsultrim showroom is a commercial space dedicated to the recovery of the textile craft traditions by its integration in contemporary designs. It is found close to the center of Beijing, in the MOMA Arts Community, an architectural complex composed by some interconnected buildings by bridges at different levels, covered by gardened areas, ponds and resting zones. The buildings are destined to offices, dwellings and shops, and in the complex there is also a hotel and a cinema.
The client wanted to show its couture collections in a showroom with an industrial American style, with a Buddhist touch. The showroom had to include an elegant dressing room inspired in the Tibet - due to the owner's affinity with this region-, and an area to welcome the artisans working. As some of these jobs produce noise, the space used for the activities had to be acoustically separated from the rest of the premise.
The first idea was to create a unique and continuous facade that would clearly show the dimension of our premise, and that would differentiate us from our adjacent buildings. For that the intern face of the façade was covered, on the inside, with a lattice composed by frames made of iron plate of 3 mm thick. The frames that are found at eye level have greater depth and function as showcase displays, and at the same time they allow the vision to the inside of the shop. The frames located above and below integrate a bamboo cane lattice, generating a sense of unity in facade and giving intimacy behind this perimeter sieve. Exhibitor’s frames count with incorporated illumination in the superior part and intermediate shelves of metal mesh that allow the light to come through.
In the Chinese culture the bamboo symbolizes the honorability. “The bent or twisted bamboos are the ones that people use in the rural environment for the animal enclosures. Nevertheless, the straight reeds represent the integrity because they won’t fall if the wind blows strong or broken by the weight of the snow”, comments our client. The bamboo brings in the Asiatic sense, framed in iron, an industrial material that connects with the required style for the interior of the building, where other materials are used to reinforce the concept: polished concrete, concrete pillars, exposed brick walls, untreated smoked wood, bare bulbs, iron shelves and two tables that are raised with a pulley system.
The rope lamp and the table with the crystal envelope and the signaling cone legs brought from Barcelona were specially designed for the project. The rugs of Nanimarquina were acquired in MINIM.
For the craftsmen that visited Tsultrim a loft was created, a suspended crystal cube, accessible from a staircase made of black iron plate with tensioning cable railing. The craft work that they develop its appreciated in a mirror strategically located in the ceiling. The loft created a bridge that ends in a showcase of 4,5 meters tall, the unique façade element different from the rest.
Tsultrim is also a Brand of high couture of Dharma Joy Company. Directed to a selected public, the firm designs tailor made clothing for events and parties, following the inspiration of the crafts from Chinese ethnic minorities but with a strong tendency to the present.
A warm space was designed, suggestive and intimate where the designed could meet with the client and do the fittings for these special suits and dresses.
The walls of the fitting room were covered with a wall paper specially made from a photograph of a Tibetan hamlet located on the side of a mountain. In front of this wall runs a very transparent gauze curtain that shows the detail of the wall paper, creating a textile environment with curtains reminiscent of Tibetan huts. The fitting room is completed with an elevated platform with wheels on which a mannequin is presented with the suit that the client hopes to prove herself. A screen (the piece Folding Screen of thermo-corrugated plywood by Charles and Ray Eames for Vitra bought in MINIM) that creates the needed privacy for the change of clothes during the fittings. Two mirrors –with rotating shaft from floor to ceiling that allow its orientation- to give frontal and back look at once. And a toiled inside its stance lined with teak wood from Burma, with marble hand wash from Carrara polished.
