Yeyeland Mineral & Dessert Concept Store by STUDIO 4/301 organizes mineral collecting, retail display, and dessert service within a 240-square-meter interior on South Wulumuqi Road in Shanghai. The project uses a sequence of fiberglass, resin, stone, steel, and stucco elements to translate geological processes into an adaptable commercial environment.
Yeyeland Mineral & Dessert Concept Store Technical Information
- Architects: STUDIO 4/301
- Location: South Wulumuqi Road, Shanghai, China
- Gross Area: 240 m2 | 2,583 Sq. Ft.
- Photographs: © Yuuuun Studio
The interior translates ideas of exploration, excavation, and mineral formation into spatial organization, material language, and display systems.
– STUDIO 4/301
Urban Threshold: A Luminous Insert Within an Existing Shanghai Facade
The project occupies the ground floor of an older Shanghai street building whose pink-grey granite facade, semicircular fanlight arch, and flanking lanterns retain a strongly masonry-based civic expression. Rather than erasing this inherited frontage, STUDIO 4/301 inserts a precisely rectangular portal within the larger arch. The intervention is composed of translucent fiberglass panels in a visible grid, establishing a measured contrast between the coursed stone wall and a material surface defined by cloudiness, veining, and internal bubbles.
Three glazed openings connect the interior directly to South Wulumuqi Road. Their alignment establishes a clear visual axis toward the central rock installation, allowing the exhibition space to participate in the pedestrian field rather than remain concealed behind a retail frontage. At night, concealed LED lighting turns the fiberglass portal into an amber surface with perceptible depth. This approach shifts emphasis away from graphic signage and toward the facade material’s physical behavior, making illumination an architectural device rather than an applied commercial signal.
Excavation as Spatial Order: The Rock Installation and Visitor Sequence
The irregular footprint is organized as a sequence of two distinct but related conditions. The entrance zone accommodates mineral display and retail, while the rear zone is devoted to desserts and seating beneath a suspended canopy. This division recalls the relationship between a site of excavation and a temporary research shelter, although the reference is developed through spatial hierarchy rather than literal scenography. The retail hall remains open and navigable, with curved fixtures defining routes without turning them into enclosed aisles.
At the center of the first zone, a pale sculpted rock formation is divided into a suspended upper mass and a lower mass rising from the floor. Between them, a slim glass-and-stainless-steel vitrine presents a mineral specimen as if exposed within a fractured geological layer. The installation provides orientation from both the street and the interior, while its vertical split creates a focused moment of observation. Around it, crescent-shaped counters and a semicircular area for temporary installations give the plan curatorial flexibility, allowing display density to change without disrupting the primary circulation sequence.
Fiberglass, Resin, and Steel: Constructing a Geological Material Language
Warm translucent fiberglass is the principal connective material of the project. It appears at the street facade, in the backlit display wall, and in freestanding retail fixtures, creating continuity between urban threshold and interior furnishing. Its mineral association does not depend on imitation. Instead, the material derives its depth from fabrication artifacts: small trapped air bubbles, cloudy striations, panel joints, and variations in translucency. Backlighting intensifies these imperfections, producing a granular field that can support display without competing with the specimens themselves.
The pale resin floor extends the exhibition into the walking plane. Mineral fragments are embedded beneath its surface alongside scattered recessed lights, suggesting deposits encountered through excavation. Material testing informed the final selection, since some specimens reacted with resin and could not retain their original appearance. Fluorite, obsidian, quartz, tiger’s eye, and lazurite were selected for their relative visual and material stability. This controlled use of genuine geological material is balanced by more industrial elements, including 8 mm stainless-steel support plates, exposed hex-head screws, steel rods, glazed vitrines, and adjustable circular shelves. The contrast prevents the interior from becoming a uniform simulation of nature.
Adaptable Display and the Dessert Room as Multisensory Architecture
The display system treats specimens as objects that require varied spatial conditions rather than standard retail stock. Thin stainless-steel plates support quarter-circle fiberglass units, assembled through visible mechanical connections. They can stand independently or join into longer curved arrangements, enabling different layouts for collections, temporary installations, and changing specimen sizes. Along the fiberglass wall, vertical rods carry circular shelves at adjustable heights, while larger vitrines provide more controlled conditions for selected pieces. The system makes its construction legible, placing mobility and maintenance within the interior’s visual language.
Beyond the retail hall, the dessert room shifts toward a softer and more enclosed atmosphere. Green stucco walls alternate rough and smoothed finishes within recessed fields, while a suspended linen-like canopy establishes the sense of a lightweight shelter inside the existing shell. Fluorite wall lamps held in stainless-steel tetragonal frames turn mineral matter into localized illumination. Stone side tables with thick glass tops, reflective steel stools, and a rotating triangular-prism dessert display continue the project’s interest in geological form, but they also support ordinary acts of sitting, choosing, and eating. By linking specimens, furniture, lighting, and food through material behavior rather than surface imagery, the room allows geology to operate as an organizational and sensory framework.
About STUDIO 4/301
STUDIO 4/301 is the design studio behind the Yeyeland Mineral & Dessert Concept Store in Shanghai. Its approach translates ideas of exploration, excavation, and mineral formation into spatial organization, material language, and display systems.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: Yeyeland
- Construction Company: Beijing Youlong Jinsheng
- Lighting Consultant: Nana Guo
- Photography: Yuuuun Studio
