Yusuke Seki + Jaime Hayon: candy shop

Japanese interior designer Yusuke Seki has recently designed a store for Barcelona-based artisan candy-makers Papabubble in Yokohama. This store is part of an ongoing collaboration between Seki and Papabubble; a store was also recently completed in Amsterdam. Also contributing to the project's furniture design is Jaime Hayon.

Papabubble Caramels Artesans started in Barcelona in 2004, and has since launched all over the world. The candies are all hand made, and in showing the process of making candy to the customer, Papabubble entertain kids and adults alike. The shops' design typically resembles a laboratory, displaying the finely presented handmade look of these experimental candies.

In the Yokohama store, the laboratory look was allied to Seki and Hayon's strong design values in the decorative details of the interior. The shop is located in an office area in Yokohama, in the ground floor of a forty-year-old building. The building's age determined extensive renovation in the interior. Emphasizing the new aspects of this design, Seki created a strong correlation between the inside and outside.

For the interior walls, Seki found and used the same tile material which was used on the outside wall forty years ago, providing continuity between interior and exterior. Because Seki's simplicity of design focuses on presence of space, Hayon's decoration of the space attempted to add a strong sense of character and identity to objects. Ordinarily, Papabubble stores use laboratory tools to demonstrate the experimental process of making candy, but here Hayon designed these tools with more personality and detail, inspired by candy artisans.

The bottles are an icon of Papabubble stores, but in the Yokohama store, they are one-off originals made by Venetian glassmaker Massimo Lunardon, coloured crystal glasses which highlight the differences in design from other Papabubble branches in the world.

Yusuke Seki + Jaime Hayon: Papabubble candy shop, Yokohama
Client: Papabubble
Art Direction, Interior design: Yusuke Seki
Furniture Design: Jaime Hayon