Located on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, Los Angeles, the JINS flagship store redefines the retail experience by delicately merging Japanese architectural sensibilities with the vibrant urban texture of Southern California. Designed for leading Japanese eyewear brand JINS, the project acts as both a cultural and spatial bridge—one that communicates the brand’s origins while establishing a distinct and compelling identity abroad.

Rather than demolishing and rebuilding, the project embraced adaptive reuse, preserving the existing structure to maintain contextual relevance and reduce environmental impact. This restraint allowed the design to focus on spatial quality and material nuance. Inspired by the intimacy of traditional Japanese tea rooms, the store introduces a spatial hierarchy through subtle shifts in color, texture, and proportion. Everything above 87 inches—including the ceiling and existing beams—is painted white, visually abstracting the upper volume. In contrast, the zone below eye level is composed of tactile, warm materials such as hinoki wood, hand-applied plaster, and terrazzo, lowering the spatial center of gravity and grounding the user in an immersive yet refined environment.

At the center of the space, a key display fixture features red brick accents, referencing both the existing building fabric and the brand’s origin in Maebashi, a Japanese city historically associated with brick warehouses. The top surface of this main display table draws inspiration from Japanese craftsmanship, featuring a traditional Naguri carving pattern whose rhythmic grooves are carefully designed to accommodate and highlight individual pairs of eyewear.

From a sustainability and inclusivity perspective, the project minimizes new construction and retains existing features such as the spiral staircase. Lighting design complies with California’s stringent Title 24 energy efficiency standards, using high color rendering fixtures that support both product visibility and energy performance. The entire store is ADA-compliant and fully accessible to all.

Innovation emerges through the design’s quiet clarity—a thoughtful reinterpretation of Japanese interior culture in dialogue with the West Coast context. Rather than echoing the overstimulating nature of conventional commercial spaces, the design favors intimacy and restraint. This careful reconsideration of scale, material, and atmosphere proposes a globally relevant approach to retail architecture—one grounded in craft, material expression, and cultural resonance.