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MATIN KIM Omotesando is the opening of a Korean brand's store in the cradle of Japanese street culture. The brief was to leave the existing building largely untouched while layering a vintage sensibility over the brand's industrial minimalism — to bring what is often called the 'Seongsu-dong feel' to Omotesando. Yet this feel is not a codified aesthetic even in Korea; locals in Japan share fragments of its formal language but cannot define it. What was agreed with the brand came down to a handful of textures: grey brick and painted brick, exposed concrete and slab, the presence of stainless steel. Rather than fixing a phrase as the concept, the rest unfolded from the form of the building itself — from floor plan through to the design of every fixture.
The store is a roadside shop at the mouth of Cat Street. Everything from the facade to the entrance and rear exit had to be considered as a whole, and this freedom opened the way for new forms, finishes, and fixture designs.
Every element apart from the interior construction was fabricated in Korea and shipped to the site. With no room to recover from even the slightest error once things arrived, the design had to account for the site with complete precision. Working with the local PM team, every detail was checked from zero to a hundred to close each possible tolerance — resulting in a space that holds MATIN KIM's identity while answering to the place that is Omotesando.