United Cycling LAB & Store
In Lynge, Denmark a new, accessible and modern welcoming United Cycling flagship store has opened.
United Cycling distributes and sells carefully chosen high-end brands for the bicycle market in Northern Europe. At the core of their business customers find dedication to quality, craftsmanship and an ambition to move the industry forward. Their first ever flagship store and showroom combined was designed over 12 months by Johannes Torpe Studios. They created a space which reflected United Cycling’s core principles and a place for riders of all kinds to meet up and cultivate their joined passion for sport.
Johannes Torpe had to transform an old industrial building into a more welcoming shop space. The existing façade has been covered in white perforated aluminium plates- a material referencing the lightness and precise engineering of the carbon bicycle. A large open space gives the entrance area a feeling of a public square, making it perfect for industry meet-ups and client events. Next to the main entrance a bike parking and cleaning station has been established with air pumps and running water.
The showroom is designed as a center point for the bikes. Concrete floors, bright white walls and custom built illuminated product display furniture are combined with 6 metres ceiling heights while white luminous ceiling panels create a feeling of standing in a sci-fi laboratory. Mounted on one wall is a customised illuminated display for 8 bikes and suspended from the ceiling are five pantographs that elegantly display a selection of bicycle prototypes.
By the click of one button, they can be lowered down for inspection by the customer. Mechanical, old fashioned and tactile (just like the bicycles themselves) they provide an interactive experience for the customer. Five display elements with lit surfaces and a cabinet box allow customers to take a closer look and feel the individual bike parts.
The south wall separates the showroom from the product gallery and is covered in perforated raw steel plates with a brass mesh attached on the backside. Through the perforations one can sense the inviting and cosy space of the product gallery. Here customers can find top-tier equipment and spare parts elegantly presented on customised oak display units.
Moving from the gallery into the white showroom is a transition that displays the contrasts between nature and science, simultaneously combining the world of men with machines. It is a transition from low to high ceilings, and from darkness into light. All elements in the showroom and the product gallery follow the same gridlines. The combination of precision and the very technical products on display creates a clinical yet ethereal atmosphere – almost like entering a sci-fi laboratory.
Johannes Torpe realised that there were various possibilities to create something that was absolutely unseen and unexperienced in retail before with this flagship store. Driven by this vision, they have created a place that is so much more than a retail space. It is a media platform and a cultural cluster, a modern retail space that functions on an extraordinary level for the client.
Johannes Torpe is not tied up by traditions – they look at new projects as new universes, and they also look into the market. This is crucial in assessing how can they cut through the noise and create something unique based on the brand DNA and their creativity. The studio is an advocate for a strategic yet unrestrained and fearless approach to design, which has a key role in why the studio was the best fit for the design of the future of retail, the United Cycling LAB & Store.
