The company’s six jewels - the Roca Galleries - conceived as platforms for debate on sustainability and innovation, have managed to become authentic cultural points of reference in the cities in which they are located.
Based on its prestige, the studio has created a design concept for the new Roca Shanghai Gallery that seeks to highlight the excellence of the brand through the unique attributes of brass. A narrative of space as poetic as practical that combines sophistication with the most natural part of life. Faced with a symmetrical floor, which is at the same time very irregular in its forms, the challenge has been to pose a simple and fluid route for the public.
Throughout the interior, different environments have been distributed in which the company’s collections and accessories are presented, while another purpose is to host events, exhibitions and conferences. Thus a central stage is born where water is symbolically transformed into a solid element and some displays designed in backlit optical glass evoke the beauty of ice. Also its white gradient and the behavior of the light through it create a magical effect in the exhibition of the product. The ease and flexibility to move these exhibition structures, which have wheels at the base, make the Gallery a multipurpose space, designed to maximize its functionality.
The extreme versatility of the space is transmitted to the lighting system, based on electrified rails and adjustable spots in light intensity that, depending on the exhibition discourse, are added or suppressed. The guides are integrated into the brass ceiling itself, while in different areas they have been replaced by downlights recessed. Likewise, in search of a constant light in the technical product zone, a system of backlit ceilings has been designed to avoid shadows.
Guided from the entrance, where the reception counter is located, visitors are greeted by a brass wall with a map of the world, in which Roca’s internationalization is represented with points. The righthand side of the space is devoted to the more technical aspects of the products and to the collections of ceramics and flooring. Similarly, the left side houses offices and a meeting room, designed entirely in oak wood. Integrated in the brass frame, the most personal environments of a house are represented throughout the interior with interactive installations on experiences inside the bathroom projected on a scale of 1:1 -Rituals-, and numerous audiovisual screens reproduce flows and movements of water -Fluxus- that will allow the brand to be experienced in a different way. Next to some of them is a large Surface table with which to interact with Roca’s different softwares, including detailed videos of the product itself. The main objective is to transmit its philosophy and concepts such as the importance of water and its saving, in the same way as it seeks to reinforce the link between visitors and space.
The premises at the back have a semicircular shape and open to the lobby of the office building. In this area, where machinery and warehouses are housed, linear austerity and a discreet presence of elements were sought, so only the Roca logo has been projected outwards, backlit on a smooth, dark background. Taking advantage of these spaces has allowed the rest of the showroom to be endowed with true spatial luxury. In the main façade the shop windows maintain the language of the rest of the intervention, projected from the inside out and integrated into the brass structure itself. In them are located several exhibition modules next to LED screens that project Rituals, turning the entrance to the building into an element in constant change, full of movement and light.
