Aesop ION by Snøhetta

Location: Singapore, SingaporeType: Retail StoreYear: 2015Architect: SnøhettaPhotographer: Wai Kay Photography

Aesop ION by Snøhetta in Singapore

Aesop ION is a retail store for the Australian skincare brand Aesop on the basement level of the ION Orchard shopping centre in Singapore, just off the bustling thoroughfare of Orchard Road. Designed by the Oslo-based practice Snøhetta over 2015 and 2016, it officially opened on 12 May 2016 after about a month of trading, and marked the first time Aesop had a presence in ION Orchard. Snøhetta calls the interior an “upside-down forest”: a warm, enclosed room in which a ceiling of hanging timber battens, mace-pink walls and polished brass recall the nutmeg plantation that once occupied the area.

Long polished brass facade of Aesop ION along the marble-floored mall corridor of ION Orchard beneath a perforated metal ceiling

An upside-down forest on a former nutmeg plantation

The design looks back to Orchard Road’s original incarnation as a nutmeg plantation, many years before the street became Singapore’s retail hub. Inspired by that obscured past and by the store’s underground location, Snøhetta assembled a sensitive combination of materials, colours and forms that turns the grove on its head. Rather than recreating trees at eye level, the architects placed the orchard floor overhead and let the trunks hang down into the room.

Interior of Aesop ION with a round brass sink on a brass plinth, circular brass shelf towers and a canopy of suspended timber battens over dark sisal carpet

Timber battens, sisal and mace-pink walls

A dark ceiling references the orchard floor and is matched by a sisal carpet in the same rich tone. From it hang thin timber battens of different lengths, tones and materials, which gather into walls that curve through the space like three trunks in a grove. Selected battens at the centre carry horizontal ‘branches’ fixed to the stems, which act as product displays, so that the forest itself becomes part of the shelving. The exposed walls are painted pink, a colour reminiscent of mace, the other spice harvested from the nutmeg fruit.

Close-up of square timber battens of varying lengths hanging in dense clusters above brass shelf towers and a pink wall at Aesop ION

Brass links to Aesop Raffles City

Brass ties the store to Aesop Raffles City, the brand’s other Snøhetta-designed store in Singapore, which had opened earlier in 2016. Polished brass panels clad the facade facing the mall, and inside the metal is used for the functional elements: the long sales counter, the sink and a brass cabinet behind the till point. “A connection with the nearby Aesop Raffles City is established through the use of brass in functional elements such as the sales counter and sink, and the metal’s lustre is enhanced by overhead lighting,” the firm explained.

Rectangular brass counter facing a lit brass-framed product cabinet in the mace-pink interior of Aesop ION, a tower of amber bottles in the foreground

Floating shelves and a basin for washing hands

At eye level the decor is deliberately sparse, keeping the focus on the products and their packaging. Much of the range sits on circular shelves mounted on slender frames that run from floor to ceiling, giving the bottles a floating quality in keeping with the forest overhead, and on brass shelving units similar to those at Raffles City. At the centre of the room, a vintage-style round brass basin with old-style outdoor taps lets customers wash their hands before treatments.

Close-up of brass swan-neck taps and rows of amber Aesop hand wash bottles on the polished rim of a cylindrical brass sink

A long collaboration between Aesop and Snøhetta

Aesop was founded by Dennis Paphitis in Melbourne in 1987, and by 2016 its fast-growing portfolio numbered more than 100 shop interiors, each with its own design, often drawing on local materials or cultural references, by designers including Case-Real, JamesPlumb and Torafu Architects. “There’s a direct correlation between interesting, captivating store spaces and customer traffic within a store,” Paphitis has told Dezeen. When it opened, Aesop ION was the fourth store Snøhetta had designed for the brand, after its first outpost in Norway, a store on Fasanenstraße in Berlin and Aesop Raffles City. Snøhetta’s work for Aesop also includes Prinsens gate and Homansbyen in Oslo, Grabenstraße in Düsseldorf, Pitt Street in Sydney and Duke of York Square in London.

Completion and credits

Aesop ION was designed by Snøhetta for Aesop as a work of interior architecture, with the design developed over 2015 and 2016 and the store opening on 12 May 2016 at ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn. The project is credited to Snøhetta as a practice, with no individual team members, consultants or contractor named in the published credits. The photography is by Wai Kay Photography.