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Poggenpohl Shanghai Experience CenterShanghai

Not What Can I Buy, but How Do I Want to Live?

Poggenpohl Shanghai Experience Center

The Poggenpohl name stands for modern kitchens with the highest standards of quality and craftsmanship, and the ‘made in Germany’ seal. In 2022, a Poggenpohl Experience Center, designed by us, opened in the heart of Shanghai. We designed the showroom as a hybrid space that brings the contemporary retail experience to life. The Experience Center is neither a dead showroom space, nor a dull sales area, but a dynamic, multi-perspectival experience space that invites visitors to discover, test and share.

Poggenpohl Manufacturing GmbH Poggenpohl Shanghai Experience Center  Everyone at one table: Kitchen and retail as community space

Everyone at one table: Kitchen and retail as community space

The kitchen is at the centre of most people’s everyday lives. It’s where we come together, where we make time for each other, a place for socialising and enjoying each other’s company. As everyone knows, the kitchen is the best place to congregate at a party. Which is why the key element of our design is a large table in the centre of the room. From here, we spatially expand the significance of the kitchen – both functionally and emotionally. Everyone comes together at one table. The kitchen as a locus of communication and community.

Pursuing this leitmotif, the Experience Center is designed as a hybrid space that zooms in on coming together for shared experiences. The large table with its heavy stone tabletop stands on castors – the room can therefore be used in all its facets. The showroom is a stage for products and events that find the right lifestyle backdrop in a stimulating and multi-layered environment. From cooking events to product presentations and even fashion shows, everything is possible here. A publicly accessible café with its own terrace, fully equipped with Poggenpohl kitchen modules, is also integrated into the showroom. This helps create customer loyalty in a physical space: The Experience Center is a place where customers come to learn and experience something special.

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Poggenpohl Manufacturing GmbH Poggenpohl Shanghai Experience Center  Retail in physical space. Exploring together: How do I want to live?

Retail in physical space. Exploring together: How do I want to live?

Our design also responds to the question: What can and must today’s retail achieve in the physical space? It’s no longer the question: What can I buy? It’s: How do I want to live? We designed the Experience Center as a multi-perspectival space that encourages visitors to explore this question together. We therefore dispense with hard boundaries in the form of walls, instead creating an open, flowing space. Intersecting spatial perspectives provide repeated surprises and encourage visitors to discover their own lifestyle, their individual take on cooking, living and socialising.

By also using the ceilings, we achieve effective zoning, giving structure to the otherwise transparent and open space. Here, too, we focus on contrast and complexity, arousing guests’ curiosity about the next section of the space. The different areas are characterised by a consistently high atmospheric density. The spatial narrative is underpinned by Poggenpohl’s quality promise. We create a customer journey from the big picture to the small picture: scale and meticulous attention to detail render quality tangible on every level.

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Highly technical, yet entirely natural

Poggenpohl Manufacturing GmbH Poggenpohl Shanghai Experience Center  Highly technical, yet entirely natural1
Poggenpohl Manufacturing GmbH Poggenpohl Shanghai Experience Center  Highly technical, yet entirely natural2

Modern cuisine combines two themes: It is highly technical on one hand, yet completely in touch with nature through its ingredients on the other. Technical innovation and the smart home meet the desire for a healthy lifestyle and a longing for immersion in nature. It is therefore as much about precision, as it is about naturalness. We combine these contrasting elements in the space. We translate the precision of high-tech kitchens – which represent the German quality promise, particularly here in Shanghai – into a spatial idiom through abstraction, geometry and order.

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At the same time, this intense precision is combined with natural elements such as dried flowers and plants. The foyer welcomes visitors with an impressive installation of a dried floral landscape. Green-painted arches are a focal point of attention. Looking through them, the ceiling canopy made from skilfully woven rattan immediately catches the eye. This material, which originates from the famous province of Zhejiang, spans the Material Lab. Further forward in the space, bright lighting grids can be glimpsed: a ceiling highlight denoting the centre of the showroom space.

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The holistic approach of aestheticizing the living space beyond the kitchen is expressed with great conviction. Embedding the kitchens in a multi-perspective experience of different worlds and materials reinforces the sense of intellectual authenticity and enhances the brand’s image and awareness in China. The showroom is also ‘community-centric’: ‘Style groups’ are the new ‘target groups’ that are clearly addressed by the expressive implementation.
ADC Competition 2024, Silver Nail, Jury Statement
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This sensory journey creates the context for reflecting on the importance of the kitchen as a central, emotional place for living, pleasure and community in one’s own life. The kitchen modules themselves have an equal status in a lifestyle environment that also features works of art, accessories and comfortable furniture. They become an expression of good taste and a symbol of their users’ individuality.

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Plans

Poggenpohl Manufacturing GmbH Poggenpohl Shanghai Experience Center  Plans

Facts & Figures

Client
Poggenpohl Manufacturing GmbH
Location
Shanghai
Status
Completed (2022)
Photo­graphy
Zhu Di
Team
  • Alessandro Belometti
  • Tiffany Chan
  • Halil Dogan
  • Peter Ippolito
  • Leo Luo
  • Frank Wang
  • Patrick Wu
  • Aaron Ye
Partner
  • Adding Plume Lighting Design, Lighting Design

Awards & Publications

Awards
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