2. Interior Detail
Chen Cheng
From
An Interior & Furniture designer based in Shanghai, China
Education
BA Engineering, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 2014-2018
Professional Experience
DEBELLE de MONTBY Associates Ltd., Shanghai, Internship, 2019
PRESS PLAY-SKD & WILLIAM BONDIN Exhibition, Beijing, Assistant, 2018
Beijing MULE Culture Communications CO. Ltd., Beijing, Internship, 2017
Enneper Surface In Voronoi Workshop, CRRC, Beijing, Designer, 2017
Exhibitions
'Work In Progress Show 2020', Royal College of Art
'Democratic Sear', Kortrijk Design Week 2019, Kortrijk, Belgium
'Work In Progress Show 2019', Royal College of Art
Awards
The Second Scholarship for Excellent Student of Beijing Forestry University, 2017
Merits Student of Beijing Forestry University, 2017
The Third Scholarship for Excellent Student of Beijing Forestry University, 2016
As an interior designer with a background of furniture engineering, my study at the RCA was an exploratory period that has enabled a transition from product engineering to interior design. I am still learning how details can be used to enrich the quality and experience of space and thus enhance the interior's ability to be an expressive medium.
During the Covid19 lockdown, everything that was moving fast has been forced to stop. This unexpected event provides an opportunity for the design industry to rethink, reflect, cherish, reduce narcissism, and solve more problems.
My Thesis Design Project started with the shoe brand Camper. This family business, founded in Mallorca in 1975, is a contemporary footwear brand that combines a traditional shoemaking heritage with new materials to create a relaxed, humorous, complex and irreverent product.
Since opening its first shop on Barcelona's Calle Muntaner in 1981 Camper has commissioned a host of interesting international designers to create a series of individual shops that form a cohesive collection of spaces that are both different yet appropriate for the brand. It is in this spirit that this project proposes a retail space for Camper within the east set of railway arches at Valentia Place, Brixton.
The principal aim of the project is to create a theatrical space to showcase the Camper brand and its products in a manner that is stimulating, humorous and playful. The spatial composition is a literal manifestation of this as a huge red Camper logo is inserted within the space in the form of an angled red element. This bold form brazenly brands the space whilst providing a playful product display plane that also acts to divide the ground and mezzanine shop floor from the staff and storage areas below. Dramatic staircases positioned to the sides allow customers to view and circulate around the products. The arch of the site provides an opportunity to create a theatrical single point perspective view of the interior and this notion is emphasised by a shop façade that pleats red perforated metal to create a curtain wall that frames the ‘stage’. At the rear of the shop, the stock is stored in a huge wall of specially designed shoe boxes the proportions of which have been formulated to reconcile the various products sizes, the interior and the site dimensions.
