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09Academic project

Research Unit Store

Typology
Retail / Exhibition
Context
Greenside Design Center
Date
2024

A retail interior for a slow-fashion label, staged as an exhibition of how a garment is actually made.

Academic project, BA Interior Design, Greenside Design Center. Images are design visualisations and drawings.

Sketches and floor plan

View all 5 images full size

Narrative

The installation makes the customer conscious of production. Raw materials greet you at the door, the making process follows, and the finished garment closes the route — each hanging display standing for one step in the life of the piece.

Research Unit produces locally manufactured, sustainably sourced garments in small batches, made by women in the Cape Flats communities, with offcut fabric converted into their own packaging. The interior was written around that position rather than applied over it.

Documented to floor, electrical and drainage plan at 1:50.

Key decisions

  • Circulation sequenced as material, process, garment
  • Hanging displays used as exhibition devices rather than stock density
  • The facade treated as a mode of navigation into the store

Nicole's role and scope

  • Concept
  • retail planning
  • installation design and technical documentation

Next project

10

Where It Started

Hand-drawn concept sketches of the cabin