At street level, a monumental staircase marks the beginning of the route designed by AIM Architecture. Organized across two floors, common areas such as the classroom, library, and cafeteria are presented as a sequence of spaces inspired by school life, stimulating curiosity and discovery.
The project positions retail as a form of cultural infrastructure, creating a space conducive to meeting, learning, and connecting. The choice of furniture, materials, and graphic elements reflects school memories without resorting to nostalgia. In this way, HARMAY Chengdu MixC results in an atmosphere that invites visitors to slow down, explore, and interact with their surroundings.
HARMAY Chengdu MixC by AIM Architecture. Photograph by Seth Powers.
Project description by AIM Architecture
Retail has long been associated with consumption. Yet some of the most memorable places in our lives are not defined by what we buy, but by what we discover, share, and learn together.
Over nearly a decade of collaboration, HARMAY and AIM have continuously challenged conventional retail models, transforming stores into destinations centered on experience, exploration, and human connection. Rather than applying a recognizable formula, each project begins with a new question, using architecture to reinterpret the HARMAY experience while preserving the brand's spirit.
For HARMAY Chengdu MixC, that question is explored through a typology familiar to almost everyone: the school.
Schools are among the first social environments we encounter, places of curiosity, friendship, experimentation, and discovery. They are spaces where knowledge is exchanged, identities are shaped, and communities emerge. Long after graduation, they remain embedded in our collective memory.
Located within Chengdu MixC, the project transforms these memories into a contemporary retail landscape. Rather than recreating the school literally, the design abstracts its atmospheres, rituals, and spatial qualities into an environment that feels both familiar and new. The experience begins at street level, where stepped bleachers inspired by school sports fields extend the store into the public realm. Functioning as seating, display, and gathering space, they dissolve the boundary between store and city, inviting visitors to pause, observe, and participate.
A monumental staircase draws visitors upward through the store, turning circulation into a journey of discovery. Across two floors, retail unfolds through a series of spaces inspired by school life: the classroom as a landscape of exploration, the library as a place of browsing and collection, the canteen as a setting for encounter and exchange, and the terrace as a contemporary playground for informal community.
Familiar materials, furnishings, and graphic cues are abstracted into a contemporary retail language that evokes memories of learning environments without relying on nostalgia. The result is an atmosphere that encourages visitors to slow down, explore, and engage with their surroundings.
More than a store, HARMAY Chengdu is conceived as a place where culture, commerce, and community converge. By transforming the collective memory of school into a contemporary public experience, the project positions retail as a form of cultural infrastructure, creating opportunities for gathering, learning, and connection while contributing to the social life of the city. It reflects AIM's ongoing belief that architecture can contribute to the cultural life of cities, not merely as a backdrop for commerce, but as a catalyst for connection. Our challenge is not simply to design better stores, but to demonstrate how spatial thinking can shape culture and contribute meaningfully to urban life.
