Caveau de XTD | MONOARCHI

Located in Xintiandi, Caveau de XTD is the first offline store of the wine agency Vinforever, for their wine display, sales and storage. They wish to show their brand culture through a pure gallery-like atmosphere. 

However, the site appears cramped with the irregular shape. The mall escalator above the store further compresses the interior space and brings noise. In such a disorganized site, we believe that Suprematism, characterized by basic geometric shapes and flat color blocks will revive the space to a pure and abstract state.

We decided to use the basic combination of square, triangle and circle to create the artistic commercial space.

The dominant shape is square, which shapes the ground-floor display and sales area, the mezzanine wine storage lounge and the mezzanine wine cellar. The top light defines a gallery-like atmosphere. Circle is shown as a 1/4 arc, playing a role as a connector between the ceiling and the wall.

We suspend the mezzanine floor with steel columns to the beams of the upper floor, leaving the ground floor as a column-free space, visually realizing a sense of continuity without interruption between the ceilings, walls and the floors, forming a spatial fluidity.

As the skin of the interface, the interior material inherits the continuity of the space and present a coherent texture.

First, we clarified and aligned the texture to the programming of the space. The warm colour paint on the ground floor promotes the commercial activities of display and sales. The cool metal texture perfectly matches the wine cold storage on the mezzanine. The marble at the end of the path interprets the price status of the wine cellar.

Secondly, we pursued the abstract sense of material to better achieve the continuity. Microcement (floor) and diatom mud (walls and ceilings) were flat-coated on the entire ground floor space; disorderly grain surface treatment of the stainless steel panels and water ripple stainless steel on the ceilings largely weakened the mirror-reflection attribute of metal, and achieved a smooth continuity, creating a supremacist flat-coating effect.

As wine is very sensitive to light, the lighting design has to satisfy the display requirement without damaging the wine. The overall lighting on the ground floor is warm. The design of the triangular top light not only serves as the main light and creates the sacred atmosphere, but also avoids direct light on the wine cabinets. The linear ceiling lights serve as a supplement to the lighting and atmosphere.

In contrast, the lighting on the mezzanine is cool, dim and dramatic. The stainless steel rods and acrylic rods form the matrix of wine display and storage. The acrylic rods provide soft illumination, giving the effect of a starry sky from a distance.

Lead Architect: Xiaochao Song, Keming Wang

Team: Xiaochao Song, Keming Wang, Titi Fang

Client: Vinforever Fine Wines

Construction Team: Shanghai Taopu Architectural Decoration Co. , Ltd. 

Light Supplier： Shanghai Fuxiwei Lighting Technology Co., Ltd.

Stainless-steel Supplier：上海睿括金属制品有限公司

Wine Cabinet Supplier: WINE TOWN CELLAR

Material：Microcement, diatom mud, stainless steel, marble, acrylic