Ornamental plants perversely divided from their ecosystem by humans

We instinctively seek to live with plants, perhaps because of our primitive memories of living in forests in the past. Ornamental plants are placed in homes, offices, hotels, stores, and other places to bring comfort and peace of mind to urban dwellers living in environments with little greenery. These indoor ornamental plants became popular after the 19th century, when forests and other ecosystems began to disappear from the vicinity of residential areas, but most of them are native to the tropics and subtropics and can be said to be isolated from the local ecosystem. Ornamental plants brought in to create a pseudo-natural atmosphere in indoor spaces are not adapted to the environment and are therefore weak and often die. While we need ornamental plants, we also have a distorted relationship with them as part of our ecosystem.

A plant store that cares for and makes each and every plant come alive

We were asked to design a new head office for REN, an ornamental plant specialty store. REN is a beloved specialist in healthy plants possessing beauty just as they are, engaging in "Reborn Plants," a process of beautifully regenerating dying plants under the leadership of Nobuaki Kawahara, the fourth generation of Tokyo Ikebana, an ikebana flower materials dealer established over 100 years ago. In designing such a space, we sought a way to accentuate the beauty of each plant, like in flower arrangement, rather than creating a pseudo-nature through the quantity of plants as many florists do. We chose to make the plants float in the air to present each plant as a vibrant and independent entity. We designed a movable wire shelf that can be used to display plants in the air according to their individuality, likening the entire store to a single vase. The space created by these shelves accentuates the vitality of each plant and expresses the importance of each one. On the other hand, it is also a store where the state of health of each plant is easily visible. In this way, we have created a completely new concept of a plant store that not only beautifully showcases each plant, but also emphasizes well-being from the perspective of plant health care.

Aiming for a better symbiotic relationship between humans and ornamental plants

REN is a practitioner of the circular economy of plants, building sustainable relationships between humans and ornamental plants, and regenerating dying plants.  Designing its new flagship store was a project that resonated deeply with us as we challenged ourselves to raise awareness of the circular economy and ecological conservation. We hope that this new store will spread REN's concept of focusing on the beauty and regeneration of ornamental plants in society and foster a more symbiotic relationship between humans and ornamental plants.

Team:

Designer: NOSIGNER Social design by evolution thinking. 
Art Direction: NOSIGNER (Eisuke Tachikawa)
Product Design: NOSIGNER (Eisuke Tachikawa, Niyen Lee)
Space Design: NOSIGNER (Eisuke Tachikawa), another APARTMENT(Tsuyoshi Kobayashi, Yuka Shomuda)
Client:REN
Photographer: NOSIGNER (Yuichi Hisatsugu)