Excellent retail designs celebrate Chinese culture

The 2024 EuroShop RetailDesign Awards China (ERDA China) were grandly announced on September 3rd during China in-store, the International Trade Fair for In-store Design & Solutions in Shanghai. These award-winning designs exemplify the pinnacle of retail store design in China, showcasing outstanding creativity and design capabilities.

And the decision was tough: almost 100 projects competed for the popular award. Participants presented their cutting-edge retail designs across five dimensions: brand concept identification, customer satisfaction, design innovation, environmental sustainability, and digitization level. Following an initial evaluation by the jury, 30 entries were shortlisted for further review by an expert panel. In the end, three designs were honored with this year’s Best Store Design Awards. The award ceremony was attended by over 100 representatives from design agencies and retail brands, who gathered to celebrate these outstanding Chinese retail innovations.

The three winners for the Best Retail Store Designs were:

1. SPOON house; Designer: Quantum Space
2. SHANGXIA tea store; Designer: College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University
3. HONOR Chengdu flagship store; Designer: HONOR Retail Design Studio

Additionally, ERDA China 2024 introduced themed award categories to bring more outstanding Chinese designs to the international stage. The categories and winners of this year are:

• Best Brand Presentation Award: Mercedes-Benz G-Class Experience Center
• Best Immersive Experience Design Award: Huawei smart life center at Ningbo tianyi Plaza
• Best Design Innovation Award: NIO House at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport
• Best Sustainable Design Award: GOEASY flagship store
• Best Digital Retail Space Design Award: Suzhou JD electric appliance flagship store at Guangji South Road

The SPOON house is designed around the core concept of the spoon, incorporating creative details such as iron spoon chains and spoon-themed woodworking decorations to reflect the brand identity of nospoonfood. The design draws inspiration from notable architects like Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, with a glass façade and concrete textures. Inside, the space features cement floors, exposed pipes, and beams, with minimal decoration to focus attention on the products. The use of unbleached wood in the display area creates a clean, comfortable atmosphere that highlights the clothing and maintains an active, inviting space.

Shangxia, a luxury brand founded in 2010, merges high-end Chinese fashion with global influences, blending traditional Chinese culture with modern aesthetics. Recently, the brand has focused on Chinese tea culture, integrating it with contemporary Eastern design to create a lifestyle that resonates with modern tastes. The Shangxia tea store at Oneitc in Shanghai reflects this vision by reinterpreting traditional Chinese tea spaces in a modern way. Inspired by tea mountains and traditional pavilions, the design features handcrafted bamboo-patterned tiles, a color palette of tea leaf greens and Ru ware blues, and layered elements symbolizing terraced fields, all aimed at conveying the beauty of Chinese tea culture in a modern, elegant context.

The design of Honor Chengdu flagship store draws inspiration from the grey tiles of Sichuan residences, blending traditional architecture with modern courtyards. The concept of "grey tiled rooftop reflected in the water" extends green tile elements throughout the space. Large glass curtain walls and open entrances create a seamless connection between interior and exterior, enhancing light and spatial depth. Natural elements like greenery, dead wood, and slates are used with techniques of enframed and contrasting scenery to create a poetic, elegant Chinese landscape for the Chinese smartphone brand HONOR.