IMPRINTING LAYERS

CLIENT
LOCATION
COMPLETION
GFA
SCOPE
DESIGN TEAM
PHOTOGRAPHY
 POP MART
Shanghai, China
February 2025
210 m2
Interior Design, VM Design
Josh Ren, Baoer Wang
WenStudio

Hirono is a unique character among POP MART’s IPs, an introspective figure who explores overlooked and internalized emotions. Through a quiet yet powerful presence, Hirono becomes a vessel for vulnerability, inviting deep emotional resonance. Embracing time, decay, and impermanence, Hirono symbolizes both comfort and healing. In Shanghai, we created Hirono’s first home, a space that embodies these subtle sensibilities.

SHELTERING - MATERIAL
Hirono finds resilience in ruins, mending himself through fragments. In response to the site’s irregular boundaries, we drew from Hirono’s personality and brought order to the chaos with intention. Heavy cast concrete wraps continuously in a looping gesture, establishing a strong sense of shelter and reorganizing the fractured layout into a coherent whole. Glimpses of the exposed ceiling preserve traces of the original site and allow the space to breathe. Deeply recessed walls form alcoves for display. Along the inner side of the loop, reclaimed timber panels wrap irregular volumes. These wood surfaces echo the grain of the cast-in-place concrete, their mirrored textures narrating a shared process of imprint and transformation. From the hard concrete shell to the warm, timber-lined core, the space invites visitors to step into Hirono’s inner world.

IMPRITNING - TEXTURE
Hirono celebrates the traces of aging and material process. Concrete panels cast from timber molds capture every fiber and fissure. The reclaimed wood, used first as formwork and later as interior finish, offers a tactile warmth that softens concrete’s cool precision. Conceptually, as the wooden molds are peeled away and reassembled within the interior core, they become a kind of living memory, an embedded language of belonging. The imprinted textures unify the space, quietly guiding visitors toward a deeper emotional connection between material, memory, and space.

HEALING - CIRCULATION
Like Hirono’s shifting emotional states, the program unfolds under different material conditions. The entry area is a concrete shell, a protective envelope that is raw yet grounded. Natural cracks in the concrete embrace brokenness as beauty. Within these gaps are carefully curated products that embody Hirono’s spirit. Beyond this threshold lies the warm timber-lined interior, where a fitting room and lounge offer moments of retreat and restoration. Drawing on the theme of healing, the cashier area is backed by a wall of traditional Chinese medicine drawers. Visitors encounter the raw imprint of the space through touch, reading Hirono’s emotions through material traces. In these surfaces shaped by time, they find a quiet, restorative power.











ABOUT
中/ENG