Located on bustling Nanjing East Road, Shanghai, MINISO LAND stands as a three-story retail store, engaging with the urban landscape and the throngs of people. Marking a new chapter in MINISO’s global expansion, this flagship store pioneers a novel retail paradigm. X+Living has crafted an immersive, IP-themed amusement park, urging visitors to escape the mundane and indulge in the liberating and joyful ambiance.
Project Name: MINISO LAND
Studio Name: X+Living
Project Location: Shanghai, China
Completion Time: 2024.9
Project Area: 1622㎡
Chief Designer: Li Xiang
Technical Director: Wu Feng, Li Yaping
Project Director: Tang Xing, Jiang Xueping
Designer: Lou Jiahao, Xiao Yuting, Ge Weixuan, Sun Zhe, Fang Yida, Xu Shanhao, Zhang Wenjia
Photographer: SFAP
Amusement park is a microcosm of universal human aspirations—happiness, joy, contentment, and hope—fostering an emotionally resonant environment. It’s a place where visitors collect moments of joy and depart with a sprightly spirit. The designer has captured the essence and symbolism of an amusement park, imagining a retail space that fosters emotional dialogue, cultural immersion, and brand essence.
A standout feature of the project, the store’s facade and exterior arrest people’s gaze with striking, vibrant colors, setting the stage for an artistic shopping experience. Characteristic figures from various IPs are prominently featured on the walls, with rich graphic designs contributing to a lively and festive atmosphere, enlivening the urban streetscape. Elements of amusement parks, such as Ferris wheels and pendulum rides, are integrated into the store’s signage, creating dynamic installations.
Entering into the first floor is like diving into a carnival amusement park with a dynamic texture. The designer has reinterpreted the interplay of assembly toys into shelf design, reducing the functional identity of traditional shelves and imbuing them with a more engaging form. Display stands and shelves, shaped like amusement rides, feature dolls from diverse IP universes. The aim is to reevaluate the perception and definition of functional facilities, reconnecting people’s emotional connections and value perceptions of products.
The blind box area subtly elevates the joyful mood with a dreamy, ethereal pink, filling the space with soft bubbles. With a forest-like progressive structure, it attracts visual interest, encouraging exploration through its layered depths. The space’s edges are softened, as if fantastical thoughts are transforming in a dream. Blind boxes are not only displayed but also combined in a contextual manner to craft a fantasy scene. Through thoughtful spatial planning and innovative presentation, the area achieves high-density storage and display of blind boxes, balancing accessibility with spatial aesthetics.
The second-floor comprehensive area encompasses a myriad of categories, including culture and creativity, beauty and personal care, home essentials, travel accessories, fashion, and pets. In terms of design, the designer learns from the techniques of film montage, weaving them into the theory of architectural segmentation to present the abundant information within the space as a logically coherent visual story. Distinct display zones create a series of narrative still frames, from which visitors can capture diverse consumption scenarios from various angles, guiding them along unique pathways. The designer employs architectural planning techniques to segment linear pathways, employing oblique cuts and other strategies to enhance the space’s contour and perspective. Bold colors weaken the layout lines, fostering a visual sense of expansion or compression, rhythmically guiding people through the space. Between partitions, camping scenes are replicated, constructing a lifestyle setting where people converge and interact, allowing visitors to immerse themselves and divert to various movement patterns.
The pet area showcases vibrant color blocks as its visual foundation, paired with black lines to delineate contours, giving the three-dimensional scene a two-dimensional animated texture. The display stands, inspired by cacti of varying heights and shapes, interprets natural plant characteristics as shelves, effectively utilizing display space while infusing the entire area with a wild charm. The display zone is envisioned as a dreamy fairy-tale desert, cleverly transforming the desert’s inherent aridity and solitude into a bright, vibrant, and lively retail space.
Upon entering the third floor, the plush area immediately captivates the entire field of vision, enveloped in a fluffy, soft texture. The designer integrates a lively and bright aesthetic with the warm emotional value of dolls, aiming to ignite the undisturbed imagination nestled in every visitor’s heart. Color, as a pivotal language for conveying spatial emotions, conveys a positive outlook on life through a series of contrasting, lively hues. The spatial layout adopts an open and immersive design concept, meticulously planning exhibition stands, displays, and movement patterns to ensure that visitors can freely admire, touch, and interact, creating an emotionally progressive experience area.
Adjacent to the plush area, the fragrance area fosters a romantic and refreshing atmosphere, transitioning from light green to light pink, evoking the vibrant growth of spring and summer, soothing and relaxing visitors’ emotions, thereby enhancing sensory experiences. Products are placed amidst branches and leaves, crafting a natural and harmonious display. The fragrance testing stands sprout from the vine-like partition, inviting visitors to pause and experience. Within the fragrance area, a row of gyroscopic exhibition stands are neatly arranged along the central axis, effectively guiding the flow of traffic while ensuring that, regardless of movement, visitors are captivated by the displays.
The design aspires to immerse consumers not only in the joy of shopping but also deeply in the vitality, creativity, and affinity communicated by the brand. As people transition from the amusement park-like space to real life, the stark contrast amplifies the surreal ambiance of the space, intensifying aesthetic tension. Through this endeavor, we aim to propel innovation and development in the retail industry in terms of business models, consumer experiences, and technological applications, nurturing commercial vitality and momentum through design.
