Expanding on the popular NIO House concept, Kokaistudios’ design for NIO Hongqiao Airport brings the client’s signature hospitality product to an airport for the first time, fusing elements of sustainable retail, luxury hospitality and brand experience for a space that promises guests much more than a typical pre-flight lounge.

Set in a high-exposure area close to boarding gates, the project comprises two portions; a freestanding rectangular lounge zone and an adjacent retail space that houses the debut location for NIO’s sustainable fashion label Blue Sky Lab. Both have been created with sophisticated light-box facades that feature diffused lighting between a sandblasted glass screen and a layer of anodised aluminium, which on approach creates a moment of striking geometric interplay as the sleek flowing curves of the lounge are offset by the solid volume of the store.

The airport setting presented a different set of usage scenarios than previous NIO Houses. Kokaistudios’ design for the lounge is composed as a procession of different functionalities, beginning with a reception and open talking lounge with a self-service bar at its centre, before moving into a quiet lounge and a semi-enclosed private chamber to the rear.

This journey is characterised by FF&E selections, with the banquette seating suitable for working and dining chairs of the open lounge arranged to foster conversation, connection and community, before gradually transitioning to the partitioned high-back lounge chairs of the quiet lounge and the intimate single sofa and large round table of the chamber compartment.

Intended as both a showcase of NIO’s popular fashion brand and its innovative approach to garment construction, Kokaistudios’ design for the retail concept’s debut venue captures Blue Sky Lab’s forward-thinking core values of urban, exploration and energy as a dynamic, fluid setting reflective of both procedure and product.

Incorporating clothing and accessory display cases alongside pedestals that highlight the catalogue of recycled car by-products used to create the collections on sale, Blue Sky Lab also features reflective mirrored glass overhead to counter the structure’s lowered ceiling, adding both a sense of space and modernist wonder.

Clean and sleek materiality in white and silver ensures the products take centrestage, though the inventive inclusion of reused car components including seatbelts that double as clothing racks adds an engaging layer of thematic detail. The result is a retail space that expresses the minimalist purity of a research lab whilst retaining a sensory, human-centred guest experience – one that succinctly represents NIO’s ambition to root its innovative products in the foundations of an organic community.