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Hyundai Finance Shop and Hyundai Brandshop

Seoul, Korea
Concrete Architectural Associates

A collection of storefront shops gives a corporate brand a 3-D identity.

Concrete Architectural Associates developed a master plan for the stores of Hyundaicard and Hyundai Capital, which will rise throughout Seoul and South-Korea. Hyundaicard and Hyundai Capital, the financial arms of Hyundai, provide loans, mortgages, and car-lease plans. Besides the financial shops, Hyundai has created a kind of private club for its exclusive members as a place for hanging out and socializing.

Hyundai Finance Shop and Hyundai Brandshop
Photo © Hyundaicard/Capital
Hyundai Finance Shop and Hyundai Brandshop

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Hyundaicard and Hyundai Capital developed a strong corporate identity designed by the graphic design agency Total Identity. The architects extended this identity into the design of the interiors of the shops with a rounded rectangular credit card-like motif. By extruding this shape and subtracting it from the existing spaces, the stores arise. The architects performed this on different scales, so every aspect of the stores displays the rounded rectangle. The architects transferred this branding onto the floor, the walls, ceiling, furniture, and into the detailing.

The finance shop, which needed to be highly accessible, is completely white. It has a light bamboo floor and a blue back wall, matching the corporate color scheme. A glass wall with the sandblasted letters “finance” on it, divides the store into pantry and meeting room. One wall in the store has a niche containing a three-dimensional information block. This 3-D wall is equipped with flat screens, tables, and folders. The other wall features the image of a city skyline, which reinforces the idea of the young urban professional character of Hyundaicard and Hyundai Capital. In the store are three help desks, with white Eames chairs and a white leather couch.

The more exclusive brandshop appears almost completely black with a caramel bamboo floor. It has three different “sub-shops”: the coffee bar (brown), the design shop (red) and the “privia” service (orange). The graphic firm Total Identity filled the back walls of the sub-shops with graphics including the back wall of the brandshop, which features an image of a beech forest, exhibiting a peaceful contrast to city life.  The furniture in the “sub-shops” are shaped as extruded rounded rectangles, adjusted to the function of their respective shop.

Formal name of project: Hyundai Finance Shop and Hyundai Brandshop

Location: Seoul, Korea

Owner: Hyundaicard / Hyundai Capital

Gross square footage: Finance Shop: Seogho (70 m2) and Yangjae (65 m2)

Brandshop: Gwanghwamun, Seoul, Korea (148 m2)

Completion Date: July 2006

Total construction cost: $380,000

Architect:
Concrete Architectural Associates
Rozengracht 133 III
1016LV
Amsterdam
the Netherlands
Tel: +31 (0)20 5200200
E-mail: info@concreteamsterdam.nl
www.concreteamsterdam.nl

 

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