MANA and Scott Oster insert mirrored skate ramp into Parisian retailer

Chicago structure observe MANA and skateboarder Scott Oster have added a skate ramp encased inside a reflective silver dice within the atrium of Le Bon Marché division retailer in Paris.

The set up – referred to as Le Dice – was unveiled because the centrepiece of the Los Angeles Rive Gauche exhibition in Paris, the place a curated number of LA trend, magnificence, and way of life merchandise have been displayed contained in the French capital’s Le Bon Marché division retailer.

Created by Oster and John Manaves of structure observe MANA, the set up has been shortlisted within the retail inside class of Dezeen Awards.

The mirrored dice was positioned within the retailer’s central atrium and is punctuated by a full-pipe – a 360-degree concave construction that skate boarders use to carry out gravity-defying stunts.

Meant to perform as each a stage and a sculpture, the elevated full-pipe hosted reside skate performances a number of instances every week.

Its reflective floor additionally meant that, when the dice was not in use,  buyers strolling alongside the balconies that wrap Le Bon Marché’s atrium might catch their very own reflection and take photographs.

“When it was not being activated, Le Dice sat quietly, luminously reflecting the structure of its environment—heat lights, ornamental iron handrails, and the well-known crossing escalators of Le Bon Marché,” stated MANA.

“Le Dice assists within the rethinking of how the way forward for retail shall exist not solely as a purchasing expertise, however extra importantly, as an exhibition, efficiency, and spectacle,” the observe continued.

“The historic setting of Le Bon Marché, the unique retail division retailer, units this precedent.”

Oster was initially approached by the exhibition’s curators to design a pop-up area within the retailer that may home a set impressed by surf and skate tradition on California’s Venice Seashore within the 1980s.

Having grown up in that period and skated professionally, Oster wished to create one thing distinctive and sculptural – or, as he describes, “a bit of artwork that occurred to be skateable”.

Impressed by the large concrete full-pipes he noticed as a child in skateboard magazines, Oster labored with Manaves to design a novel full-pipe set inside a dice and wrapped with mirrors.

The dice measured six metres sq. and comprised of 4 timber-framed bays, two of which cantilevered over the construction’s smaller steel-framed base in order that it appears to drift above the store ground.

It was then clad in sheets of light-weight aluminium manufactured by native firm Like Mirror. Every one was designed to be versatile in order that the vibrations created by skateboarding did not injury the structural framework.

Slender gaps had additionally been left between the panels to type a visual grid throughout the dice’s floor, highlighting the construction’s geometry.

Supreme retailer in Brooklyn by Neil Logan options an elevated skate bowl

“The design not solely needed to account for the conventional static a great deal of the set up, but additionally for the dynamic a great deal of the skateboarder inside,” defined the architects.

The inner full-pipe was 5 metres in diameter and featured a plywood ramp. Lights, audio system, and an entry door have been put in flush to the ramp’s floor to allow unobstructed skating.

This is not the one occasion that retail areas have included quirky options for skate boarders – final 12 months, New York-based studio Neil Logan Architect inserted a skate bowl into streetwear model Supreme’s Williamsburg retailer.