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Although BIBU is promoted as a “pet store” it is really much more. It is an entire pet-care and pet-pampering environment, strategically answering the call of the younger generations to provide the services and products their pampered pets need. In addition to retailing pets, pet supplies and food, BIBU includes also a veterinary clinic and hospital, and facilities for pet boarding, spa, grooming and training.

The designers of the two-level, 630 square-metre (6,781 sq. ft) shop are Guangchou-based One Fine Day Studio & Partners, a (ofD), an architecture and design firm established in 2013.

Lead architect Jump Lee with design team members Chun-jie He and Yong-jie Lao drew inspiration for the upscale project from American filmmaker Stan Kubric’s iconic 1968 sci-fi film 2001:A Space Odyssey.

The façade of the store that is located in the high-end condo building, Gaode Mansion, is a happy and friendly bright blue square that immediately attracts attention. With its rounded openings it resembles a 1950s appliance, perhaps a radio, fridge or TV. It also heralds the retro milieu of the interior.

On the ground floor, right at the entrance, ofD placed a social area, a café called DOPPIO by La Moitié where the Space Odyssey-theme is the most obvious. The white tiled floor, the futuristic furniture pieces placed far from each other, and the overall feel of space, light and whiteness are all part of this retrofuturist impression, the future of the past. The design firm has worked with La Moitié before, so the connection with that brand came naturally.

The second-floor includes the pet hospital and clinic where cleanliness is the main requirement. But even there, in the general whiteness, the Space Odyssey-theme is palpable in the, muted colours, smoky metal and abundance of lighting fixtures.

The two-level space, although divided clearly into sections that separate the various services, is connected by an open atrium that gives the viewpoint from which one can really appreciate yet another aspect of the Space Odyssey theme, the rounded forms of the project.

From the spiralling stairs to partitions, lighting fixtures and windows, everything is rounded. This also includes all corners as there are no sharp angles in BIBU, which of course is also good for the guests, the pampered pets.

The overall colour scheme is muted white with forest green and robin’s-egg blue as accents and with white tiles and dark wooden panels covering the floors.

The Gaode Mansion is located in the core area of Guangzhou, next to the K11 Art Mall and the International Financial Centre. Tuija Seipell

Images by yuuuunstudio

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The recently reopened Municipal Baths of Strasbourg really must be addressed as ‘Baths.’ It would not seem right to call the complex just simply a swimming facility or an aquatic, wellness or community centre. It is all of these but  its grand architecture and interior design, both now elegantly restored by the Paris and Geneve-based Chatillon Architectes, demand that the historic Baths continue to be called Baths even today.

Built by the German city planner, painter and architect Fritz Beblo in 1905-1908, the swimming pools and thermal baths complex was considered one of his finest buildings anywhere. Beblo was at the time the head of the city’s building department and a key figure in the development of the city’s Neustadt (new town) area during the German Empire (1870-1918).

Bebo’s progressive team took a bold, artistic and holistic approach, designing and controlling absolutely everything from building materials to the door handles. And although the building’s purpose was functional – winter swimming and hygiene were the city’s goals at the time – many of the details were purely decorative. The material selection was eclectic and the style is mixed. There are references to Jugendstil but also to Baroque, Renaissance and even Japanese styles.

Jugendstil was the German counterpart of Art Nouveau. The followers of the movement rebelled against the industrial age of machinery and the tall, boxy and featureless buildings of the era by infusing their art, design and architecture with softer forms and decorative motifs that often suggested the natural world.

The 23-million-Euro reconstruction and renovation of the Baths started in 2018 and culminated in the grand re-opening earlier this month. The project had to meet several objectives: to upgrade the buildings and add new safety, accessibility and energy-efficiency features; to enhance the existing features; to restore characteristics and details that had been altered over the year; and finally, to add new facilities to meet current and future needs.

In addition to the original pools, the facility now includes an outdoor pool, mineral baths, jacuzzis, exercise and yoga studios and many other health, wellness and exercise spaces.

Chatillon Architectes is known globally for its expertise in redevelopment and renovation of heritage and historic building including the renovation of the Carnavalet Museum in Paris in association with Snøhetta and Agence NC (Nathalie Crinière) Chatillon Architectes founder, François Chatillon, is also the Chief Architect of France’s historic monuments and the firm is currently working on, for example, on the restoration of the Grand Palais and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

With its 1005-year-old Cathedral and colourful history, Strasbourg is today one of the four main seats of the European Union, in addition to Brussels, Luxembourg and Frankfurt. Strasbourg is located at the border with Germany in the historic region of Alsace. The river Rhine forms the border with Germany. Strasbourg’s historic city centre (Grande Ile) was classified as an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988 and its newer part, Neustadt, was added to the classification in 2017.  Tuija Seipell

Images Cyrille Weiner

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The need to upgrade the design of medical and dental offices has been talked and written about for at least three decades. Yet real change has not taken place. Certainly not in the non-luxury world. From the customer perspective, most are still boring, bland and decidedly “medical.” Yes, we understand the need for hygiene and procedural and protocols and requirements, but is there a law about everything needing to be boring and slightly scary-looking as well?

The medical world is traditional and conservative. Perhaps the need to be, and appear to be, trustworthy and reliable has been confused with boring? We have encountered this attitude many times and it is evidenced, for example, in the design of new tools and devices as well. They evoke anxiety and fear, rather than comfort and healing.

We are not advocating frivolity here or silliness but instead we look for a bit of true customer-focus, comfort, convenience and visual pleasure. We are looking for design that reflects wellness rather than sickness, comfort rather than fear.

In the Ruixiang Dental Clinic, occupying a street-front location in the prosperous city of Rui’an in Wenzhou City, China, Chinese design firm JACKY.W Design has achieved some of what we are looking for. The lightness and friendliness of the clinic creates a resemblance to a spa more than to a medical facility.

The smart use of features such as soft lighting, light wood and rounded corners, creates a comforting ambiance that is further enhanced with the natural-tone furnishings and home-like accents, such as small natural-wood side tables and plants. However, the goal is not to be homey, rather the focus is on comfort and ease.

The 194 square-metre (2,088 sq. ft) space includes a large reception and waiting area, four treatment rooms, a consulting room and six functional rooms that include the disinfection room and the equipment room. We do not see any evidence that this design direction would somehow undermine the professionalism and expertise of the doctors and expert staff working at the clinic. We hope to see more of this and soon. Tuija Seipell

Images WYAP

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Those endless rows of black equipment. The overall feel of a gym. We are hoping that one day, someone will disrupt this segment and decide that not all exercise equipment has to look like oil-rig machinery channelling destruction and torture, not health and well-being.

Maybe we are the only humans whose idea of health and fitness doesn’t include torture or brutalist leanings. And yes, we hear those of you who’d like to send us back to our spas and wellness studios and stop whining. We will gladly go. But before we do, we feel there must be a middle ground somewhere. Even if we are, on occasion, ready to push and demand a bit more of ourselves than the tree pose, does it have to be in a cavern of doom? And does all of the equipment have to look so ugly? And no, we are not talking about feminine and masculine here. We are talking about balance and appeal.

This is what we were contemplating when we ran, once again, across the images of the Warehouse Gym located on the second floor of the Springs Souk shopping mall in Dubai. This 1,200 square-metre (12,916 sq.ft) gym is part of a chain of eight Warehouse Gyms in the Emirates, each with its own vibe and its own offering of services.

As adverse as we are to excessive striving, we feel there is merit in this design completed by Dubai and Montreal, Canada-based VSHD Design founded by interior architect Rania Mahmoud Hamed.

We do like the idea of employing just a few simple design components – round shape, subtle lighting, mirrors and orange-red accents – and sticking to them. We also love that all those features help lean the experience a bit further away from the black abyss of sweat and suffering and closer to fun and enjoyment. We also love the shower and change-room area with its streamlined, minimalist tiling, black modern fixtures, wood-trimmed doors and wood seating. This is where we see some of that balance. These auxiliary spaces offer a calm atmosphere and a spa-like feel.

However, the description of the gym on the shopping mall website clearly states that the purpose of the design concept was to entice the patrons to sweat to loud music surrounded by bright colours and a sense of a night-club-like buzz. It also refers to amplified energy and no rest, so their immediate target clientele clearly needs this. But there is apparently also a yoga studio, so perhaps there is a mat for us as well.

Overall, we really love the flexible lighting program that follows the trend that has moved gym-lighting from starkly neon-lit spaces to ambient lighting that can be modified, re-focused and dimmed, and that functions as a clear design element. We also like the clever use of round mirrors that multiply the reflections in each other. Tuija Seipell

Images: Oculis Project /V2com 

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According to Jade Kim Nguyen, co-founder and CEO of design firm Module K, Vietnamese movie theatres have thrived in recent years in part because they offer a social experience. She has said that in Vietnam millennials and gen Z don’t go to the cinema just to watch a movie, they go in a group to hang out, to talk and spend an evening together. In short, movie theatres are, or need to become, destinations.

A millennial herself, Jade Nguyen knows what she talks about, and a recent movie multiplex project in the firm’s home base of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC aka Saigon) indicates that her clients think so as well. Module K, the design firm she co-founded with Nguyen Anh Huy in 2015, beat 30 other firms to design Beta Cinema Quang Trung, the Vietnamese Beta Group’s first movie theatre in southern Vietnam.

Minh Bui, the founder and CEO of Beta Group and also a millennial himself, wanted the movie complex to attract younger audiences and to be a destination for their evenings together, but he also wanted the design of the theatre to reflect pride in the landmarks of old Saigon. Module K reports that Minh Bui described his reasons for selecting Module K saying that “Module K’s strong design response and their passion made a big impact and matched our own.”

The seven-theatre, 1,000-seat complex opened earlier this year occupies 2,000 square metres (21,500 sq.ft) on the ground floor of an existing shopping centre at 645 Quang Trung in the Go Vap district of HCMC.

To appeal to younger audiences and their Instagram accounts the complex has a happy and funky retro feel. It certainly is doing more than merely serving as a place for movie posters, popcorn sales and movies. The designers have channelled several of old Saigon’s architectural landmarks in an art-deco/art-nouveau minimalist, two-dimensional style employing bright and bold pastelly colours of flamingo pink, peachy orange, turquoise and aqua.

The designers paid homage to the 19^th century city of Marie-Alfred Foulhoux, the beaux-arts-trained chief architect of French-occupied Saigon, but they refreshed the historic vibe by infusing it with modern urban buzz. Nguyen recognizes that many of the younger movie-goers will probably not even recognize the nods to the architectural landmarks but they are there nevertheless for those who wish to see them.

The arches of the complex echo the arched façade of Saigon Municipal Opera House – also known as Municipal Theatre of Ho Chi Minh City. It was designed in French colonial style by French architect Eugene Ferret as Opera de Saigon and shaped like the Opera Garnier in Paris. Flying pigeons ubiquitous around the Opera make an appearance in the movie theatre in the form of custom-designed pendant LED lights.

The double-height entrance hall of Beta Cinema reflects the city’s Central Post office recognized for its vaulted ceilings and unusual architecture of gothic, renaissance and French influences. It was designed by Alfred Foulhox himself and constructed in the late 19^th century when Vietnam was part of French Indochina.

The influences of the pastel pink and white interior of Tan Dinh Church, nicknamed aptly “the pink church” are also visible in the cinema especially in its asymmetrical columns. The church dates back to the colonial period with a mix of styles from neo-Romanesque to neo-Gothic and neo-Renaissance. The colourful ticket counters and snack stands in Beta Cinema channel the riot of colours in the stalls of city’s largest market, the Ben Thahn, that sell everything from food to fabrics, souvenirs and handicraft.

With its 20 cinemas in northern Vietnam Beta Group is now actively expanding in the south. After completing Beta Cinema Quang Trung under budget and in just 35 days, Module K has been engaged to design also Beta Cinema Phú Quốc on Vietnam’s largest island. Hanoi-born, Harvard-educated Minh Bui is expanding Beta Media, the movie arm of his Beta Group that also includes food and beverage concepts, into film production and distribution. Tuija Seipell

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AHC Waterful Desert Spa is the new flagship location and a renewed spa brand of the Korean beauty brand AHC.

The soft-hued, open and airy spa provides an antidote to the endless hustle of the 9.8-million-inhabitant city’s Gangnam (Gangnam-gu – South of the River) district that is the capital’s modern high-end, high-energy centre with its skyscrapers, nightclubs and shopping.

Local design firm FLYmingo  created the calm and pleasing atmosphere using a smartly edited set of visual effects. FLYmingo directors, Kim Junho and Hwang Jiyeon with team members Oh Hwayoung, Lee Suji and Kim Minji selected a soothing colour palette of white accented with warm off-whites and sand-tones, and a set of gentle curving elements that direct the eye and create a sense of flow.

Located by the Han River, Seoul has an intimate link with flowing water, so the central winding water-feature is a natural. The soft, curving form repeats gently in the arched doorways and windows and in the shapes of the furniture, mirrors and lighting.

Lush plants add a touch of outdoors and provide an accent colour. The lovely sail-like awning stretching over the terrace projects once again the lightness and breezy calm expressed so beautifully in the entire 330 square-metre (3,552 sq.ft) spa.

The goal of the design team was to provide a place for a spacation for the wary pandemic-stressed urbanites, a relaxing and calming break from the constant noise and crowds of the city. And they have more than succeeded. It really does feel impossible to believe that this is located right in the middle of a super-busy metropolis and not in a beach-front hotel.

Carver Korea https://www.ahc.co.kr/ and the AHC product line were originally established in 1999 by as a skincare product brand. It has since expanded from a fairly exclusive product line to a mass-appeal brand, and its Play Zone beauty salon/spa/shops provide not just the products but also skincare, spa, makeup, nail and hair treatments. In 2017, Carver Korea became part of the Unilever group of companies. Tuija Seipell

Images Yongjoon Choi

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Who knew we would be thinking of the ordinary pleasure of going to a movie in our own city with almost the same desperate longing we used to daydream of lengthy luxury holidays in distant places? For now, it’s no movies and no airline travel until situation clears or eventually stabilizes.

In Hong Kong the circumstances are doubly difficult as the political turmoil is complicating the already Covid-shaken situation. Hong Kong has done well in controlling the virus so far but new cases are now confirmed daily and movie theatres are closed.

None of this stops us from admiring the ambitious new K11 Art House movie theatre operated by UA Cinemas and designed by Hong Kong-based Oft Interiors.

The 6,034 square-metre (65,000 sq.ft) cinema complex is the flagship theatre of K11 MUSEA, the pioneering retail and entertainment concept that opened in 2019 at Hong Kong’s Victoria Dockside.

More than a decade in planning and development by the K11 Group, founded by local entrepreneur Adrian Cheng in 2008, K11 MUSEA is a massive waterfront revitalization project on the historic site of Holt’s Wharf in the busy urban Tsim Sha Tsui area on the Kowloon Peninsula. K11 MUSEA has been called an art mall and a cultural retail destination, and while its full potential has not yet been realized, the artistic and creative focus is encouraging.

Oft Design founders CM Jao and Ken Cheung and project design team members Shanny Cheung and Tobey Ngai created a multiplex of nine separate multi-purpose theatres with seating capacity ranging from the 30-seat VIP House to the 376-seat IMAX theatre. Several restaurant and bar options and Hong Kong’s first pop-up store for digital music service MOOV are also included.

Oft has designed several movie theatres in China and Hong Kong, including another UA Cinema in the West Gate Mall in Shanghai, but the K11 Art House complex is distinctively different from all of them.

With the stonework and the dark wood beams, floors and fixtures, the designers are referring to the Swiss Alps and the building styles and material of that area. With the distinct style the designers are instilling a sense of intimacy and luxury to the movie-going experience that is so often just a non-descript fast food-scented routine. Right now, we’d be happy with any old cinema outing, but eventually, the stakes will be higher as new, ambitious contenders like these merge. Tuija Seipell

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