Japanese outdoor and lifestyle brand Snow Peak partnered with Atelier Kikuchi for the design of their new London flagship store. Snow Peak is well established in Japan. Now in its third generation of family ownership, beginning 60 years ago with a range of mountaineering then camping products, the current President Lisa Yamai is the granddaughter of Snow Peak’s founder and set up the company’s apparel line. The 400 square metre space is set over three floors. The brief was to reinforce a connection to nature, with reference to Engawa – a traditional architectural element which acts as a threshold between inside and outside. The double-height ground floor is dedicated to clothing and accessories and opens up to a first floor mezzanine. It also houses an in-store café. A more intimate first floor is home to apparel and fitting rooms while a basement level features camping equipment where staff demonstrate its use, along with a repair workshop, with a window providing a glimpse into workmanship in progress. Atelier Kikuchi took inspiration from Lisa’s approach to fashion design, which interprets traditional utilitarian Japanese clothing, textural fabrics and natural craft processes into Snow Peak products. A family of oak furniture pieces and flooring brings out these textures. Tables and benches designed by Atelier Kikuchi are rich with tactile knots and open wood grain, while industrial elements are used for fashion display units. Hot rolled steel with a clear lacquer gives a worked, hand tooled finish and nods to Snow Peak’s heritage – its products originated and continue to be made in Tsubame-Sanjo City, a region known for finely crafted metalwork. A staircase connecting all three floors continues the industrial aesthetic with hard wearing timber boards and steel balustrades yet the space is kept bright with walls coated in textured paint to resemble the sand walls of Japanese tea houses and temples. Clever design solutions hint at Japanese domesticity. Hiding a lift access panel, a niche takes its cue from Tokonoma, a wall space found in Japanese houses for display of decorative objects, in this case for Snow Peak’s range of aluminium table and cookware. These individualising spaces help divide up a deep floor plan to create a more personal, domestic scale. While each space is distinct, one clearly flows to the next with visual links between them. A wall rising up almost the full height of the store is constructed of workmanship like concrete blocks with a sandblasted surface and large punched holes allowing views through the stairwell and floors above or below. At basement level, display methods are subtly different. Oak is used as the primary material for shelving, both to give a suitably nature-like backdrop for outdoor gear but also to act as a lighter visual counterpart to the larger, heavier objects on display. The design again is completely bespoke – deeply grained oak with a recessed metal railing for shelving, and a wall mounted oak peg rack to hang everything from sleeping bags to backpacks and the occasional iconic titanium coffee mug. In the context of today’s retail market with its need to rapidly adapt yet still welcome and delight each customer, the beauty of Snow Peak’s London flagship is in its sensory, experiential details. Taking the concept of a walk through a forest which heals the mind through engaging all the senses, the ultimate design intention was to reinforce this sensory connection to nature within a human-made retail environment. The interaction of sound, touch and vision is strengthened and articulated through a series of design interventions. Crossing the threshold of the store, the visitor gaze is drawn up to a first floor mezzanine, framed with unmistakeably Japanese elements of metalwork, and delicate timber, flanked by a pair of black olive trees. A welcoming in-store café invites a sense of pause and reflection. Wood plinths and matting nod to Japanese domesticity. A sound installation subconsciously enhances the sensory movement through the store, while quietly reinforcing the Snow Peak ethos of enjoying nature. Working with sonic artist Manabu Shimada, five speakers have been dotted over a 10 metre high wall area in the main stairwell to accompany the journey between each floor with an acoustic installation of birdsong and crackling camp fires. Recorded in one of Snow Peak’s campsites in Japan, the sound is composed and programmed to move vertically between the speakers, giving a greater sense of depth to the space by evoking aural associations of the gentle sway of trees at first floor, through rainfall and down to setting up camp on the forest floor at basement level. Craftsmanship and attention to details is evident throughout and reinforced through other collaborations with Japanese designers. Delicate sculptural paper lanterns by Isamu Noguchi light the stairwell. Display space is also given to products by other young designer-makers namely ceramics and glassware by Noriyuki Furutani, Yoshihiro Nishiyama and Takumi Sakamoto. In essence, Snow Peak London St James weaves multiple sensory elements into a uniquely full retail experience. Atelier Kikuchi have carefully crafted a subtle layering of materials, texture, colour, weight, transparency, density, light, and shadow to champion Snow Peak’s ethos of reconnecting with the natural world.