Concept store design – architect Fabio Ferrillo designs Vietnamese concept store Runway between pure lines and tributes to the Italian design masters of the ‘50s.
Fabio Ferrillo, the founder of Milan-based architecture studio OFF Arch, takes on a new interior design project and lands in Hanoi, Vietnam, with the realization of Runway concept store. The driving idea was to create a retail space where the colors and shapes of the luxuriant Vietnamese vegetation could combine with the essential lines of the masters of ‘50s Italian design: Franco Albini, Osvaldo Borsani, Carlo Scarpa.
The Central Building, the venue hosting the store, represents an important center and is well frequented by diplomats and demanding clients seeking the most exclusive fashion pieces. A sumptuous canopy, reminiscent of the hotel entrances of Côte d’Azur, invites customers to enter a unique, contemporary store full of light – just as the commercial spaces of the international capitals.
The Venetian terrazzo floor is enclosed in vertical partitions where to admire extraordinary patterns recalling details of the most esteemed Italian stones, like Navona travertine or ceppo di Gré. Inside, large glass displays composed of mirrored surfaces of polished steel and lacquers in pastel shades enhance the fashion collections, making the garments visible and appealing. The areas are marked by irregular fields of soft, natural fiber carpets in contrast with the precious French herringbone parquet in natural oak.
The climax is represented by the monumental staircase of beige Hauteville stone from Southern France: huge stone slab as steps expand the sales floor area, accompanying clients onto the second floor of the store on a journey through a unique luxury shopping experience.
Fabio Ferrillo
Fabio Ferrillo develops his unique style in the most relevant interior design offices at first in Milan and then in Paris, specialized in the design of luxury interiors and commercial spaces for prestigious Italian brands. After gaining experience in France, Fabio comes back to Milan in 2010 to establish interior and product design studio OFF Arch focused on the sectors of luxury fashion retail, hospitality, institutional and residential interiors.
His formation at Politecnico di Milano and the international collaborations allowed the architect to develop his own language combining the most cultured and sophisticated Milanese tradition – from Franco Albini’s furniture at Casa del Cedro by Giulio Minoletti – with the will to experiment including deconstructed and daring contemporary aesthetics. Most of all, it is his experience in the fashion industry, matured through important realizations – MSGM Headquarters, Emilio Pucci offices and Chiara Ferragni Collection showroom – that influenced his realizations, each time able to recreate a spectacular and conceptually refined atmosphere which also distinguishes his projects in other fields, such as high-end Osteria Campamac and Vietnamese luxury store Runway.
A strong linear geometry characterizes the office’s projects, where segments and lines rejoin in warm diagonals of matter and light or else recreate minimal, well-balanced atmospheres. His sensitivity in the use of color and lighting matches the sparkling metals and precious marbles, sometimes seduced by the appeal of the raw and deconstructed, like rough concrete and exposed technical plants. Each and every one of Fabio Ferrillo’s projects embodies a captivating harmony slowly disclosing to the observer, between iconic references to the great masters of architecture and new, charming perspectives.
