STRUCTURING LINES

CLIENT
LOCATION
COMPLETION
GFA
SCOPE
DESIGN TEAM
DESIGN INTERN
CONTRACTOR
BRAND CONCEPT
PHOTOGRAPHY

toutche
Shanghai, China
December 2025
50 m2
Facade, Interior Design
Josh Ren, Baoer Wang
Joshua In, Jack Hu
TAI Architecture & Decoration
Wang Chen
WenStudio

Situated along Julu Road in Shanghai, toutche’s first retail store introduces the brand’s philosophy into the fabric of the city. Small in scale and directly accessible from the street, the space distills toutche’s language of prototypes and its central metaphor of tofu—soft yet structured, malleable yet enduring. The design process began by abstracting the site’s irregular geometries into essential volumes, conceiving them as “blocks of tofu” to be structured with precision.

FRAMEWORK
The design reveals structure as if unmolding a box of tofu, with traces of the mold retained as part of its character. Walls are articulated by a framework of lines that compose the space into a legible grammar. Vertical lines follow central axes, becoming light rails and upright display tracks. Horizontal lines correspond to the site’s window heights, with the lower sill forming the datum for skirting and the upper edge defining racks, wall cabinets, and rails. Each line inscribes order, embedding function unobtrusively into the gaps of the space.

POISE
A restrained palette emphasizes abstract relations and structural logic. Like tofu—clean and measured—the materials create reasoned encounters within the space. Off-white stucco, matte and tactile, recalls the quiet surface of tofu. Light beige limestone grounds the floor, with inlaid strips of artificial stone tracing the structural lines. Metal details sharpen the edges, their tone calibrated to match the stone. Subtle variations in texture and finish unify the palette, where restraint gives rise to a quiet depth.

RELATION
The store embodies toutche’s pursuit of relational aesthetics, focusing on a grammar of form and function rather than decoration. Functional elements emerge from the embedded framework in the walls: platforms for artifacts, hooks for paintings, and racks for clothing. Each line, surface, and junction is pragmatic yet expressive, shaping a backdrop where objects, space, and people coexist. Like toutche’s prototype garments, the interior is restrained yet enduring, a carefully measured composition that holds complexity within simplicity.