Spanish firm TAKK, led by Mireia Luzárraga and Alejandro Muiño, recently completed a new space for Swatch that doesn’t neatly conform to what people might typically associate with Swiss watchmakers. Grotto, as the designers call the project, is an unconventional retail space that can also be used for “public activities such as lectures, workshops, or debates,” according to the architects.
The project is meant to be informal both programmatically and aesthetically.
The cave-like spaces are roughly finished with highly-textured white walls that bend and slope over the interiors, deforming to create seating in some places and openings in others. The domed spaces are capped with lace-like grills that, along with ornamental chains draped throughout the space, add a “feminine” touch, according to the designers. The overall look is meant as a sort of rebuttal to highly-polished environments typically used to sell goods to “virile” consumers.