UXUS

UXUS was founded in Amsterdam in 2003 by George Gottl, former Creative Director at Nike and Mandarina Duck, Oliver Michell, former architect at Rem Koolhaas and Erika Gottl, founder of luxury wine brand, Merus.

Their backgrounds and experiences gave the consultancy a broad foundation on which to build their business. With a team that now consists of over fifty, they draw talent from around the world to work in their studios. It’s this cultural diversity and their collective minds that is part of their strength, which in turn enables them to work on an equally diverse range of projects.

Housed in the base of the angular gallery, within the Tate Modern’s distinctive new wing by Herzog de Meuron, Tate Modern’s shop has been designed by Uxus to change in line with the needs of the museum and its calendar of exhibitions. Whilst the overall look of the space is unified, the design of the furniture can be reconfigured moveable and even the lighting is integral to each unit. The colourful graphic navigation is a nod to the perforated brick screens used in the interior architecture of the space.

They’re making a name for themselves in the beauty sector with a number of concept. First, we saw Sephora’s Beauty T.I.P (teach, inspire, play) Workshop, in San Francisco, which is a great example of how they helped the brand bring the next-level of service and education into the store environment. With the Beauty Workshop Table at its social core, the concept facilitates education and spontaneous product play at every turn enabling a more enhanced and connected customer experience. Similarly, in their glamorous concept for Make Up For Ever, they created an enhanced customer experience with a focus on makeup artistry and live tutorials for customers. The Pro Makeup bar, at the centre of the store, even features a ‘sushi bar’ like conveyer belt, from which customers can select a specific makeup look to try on the spot, whilst for Forever 21’s beauty spin-off, Riley Rose they’ve designed a playful beauty boutique targeting the savvy millennial shopper.

More recently we have seen the opening of L’Occitane’s largest store in the world on Regent Street, which is not only a very beautiful store but a sensorial delight which reaches out to a younger audience and brings the product to life and educates customers about the brand. In a partnership with famous macaron brand Pierre Hermé, the unusual combination of fragrance and food and brought together in a bar on the ground floor and in the café upstairs. The ground floor welcomes customers in with colourful, fragrant columns of the brand’s botanical ingredients, and also features an education bar and the opportunity to create customised gifts, while complimentary treatments are available on both floors.

With hospitality and experiential at the heart of many of today’s retail concepts, their store for luxury chocolate brand Godiva includes an atelier where customers can experience the passion of the chocolatier’s craftsmanship and enjoy the enticing display, before indulging themselves in the café.

Their concept for Jake and Dino Chapman F*cking Hell Das Shop in Amsterdam is a physical manifestation of their online store. Located in a former massage parlour, many of the objects used in the store were found on site and repurposed and painted white to spotlight the Chapman’s (often shocking) art pieces.

In Speys casual dining experience, they took geometric design reference from the event venue’s historic event posters and expressed this through various materials, from backlit facades to cutout timber furnishings and flooring.