the summer sun

Water has always been an element of inspiration for Le Soleil de'été, as it brings out the lightest, most fluid and adaptable elements. The choice of an architectural project for the new store seeks to meet the demands of a shopping mall – design, approval and execution in just two months – in a difficult environment – a 27m2 commercial space in the shape of a trapezoidal prism measuring six meters in height.

A shopping mall is a kind of crystal fantasy, a rigid aquarium subdivided dozens of times where each store houses an animal that responds to its own interests within the local normative rules. The architectural design for the new Le Soleil de'été store responds by inserting an aquatic body structured by slender metal profiles that molds itself to the environment. The six pillars-legs support the stock covered by a scale-like skin made of clay tiles. Everything else - the spiral staircase, the display window, the changing room, the wrapping table, the counter, the clothes racks, the cabinets and the clothing - is linked to this body, like corals on the rocks of the sea.

In this fantasy, we had to make a crab with six legs, fish scales and an aquarium full of corals that tell the stories of the waters.