Curves and Colours at Beautysaur Organic’s Flagship Store
Interior and architecture design studio Bean Buro was tasked with designing Beautysaur Organics’ flagship store, where soft curves and sculptural display elements are complemented by a gentle colours and materials palette. We spoke with the studio’s founders Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui and Lorène Faure to find out more about how they translated the brand’s identity into a spatial experience
Design Anthology: How did you first meet the client?
Lorène Faure (LF) : The client came to us after seeing some of our published projects, as they felt our approach to aesthetics could align very well with their organic skincare and beauty brand Beautysaur Organics. This luxury brand is known for offering an eclectic collection of skincare products from around the world. They were drawn to our previous projects that feel fresh, inviting and gentle in an elegant way.
What’s unique about the building and location?
Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui (KKT): The store is in the new K11 MUSEA mall in Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui, and sits alongside many other international luxury brands. The mall has a large variety of customer types, which means there’s excellent potential for creating a flagship store to develop the brand.
What was the brief to you for the project?
KKT: Beautysaur’s online store has been highly successful over the past few years, and the vision was to create a flagship store that represents the brand, with a robust physical presence to attract an even broader array of customers. The physical store also needed to be a space for events and workshops to introduce shoppers to the latest skincare products.
What design references or narrative did you try to incorporate into the space?
KKT: After landing on a well-researched foundation and brief for the project, we proposed a poetic narrative that responded to the brand’s commitment to natural and organic ingredients and products. The dinosaur in the company’s logo represents primitive and natural beings. The design concept is a spatial composition of ‘eclectic bodies’, a variety of custom-designed joinery units inspired by colourful dinosaurs, that serve different functions while working together cohesively. The eclectic aesthetic features curvy and voluptuous elements, with different materials and colours coming together in coherent contrasts.
Please tell us a little about the material choices for the space.
LF: Unlike many typical skincare stores that generally use neutral colours with lots of timber, the materials palette here is a tasteful combination of soft colours like taupe, beiges and greens, with limited use of terrazzo, timber and metal accents. The result is a bright, soothing and refreshing space that feels unique to the brand.
We created a tasteful palette of timber and fresh colours, accentuated by terrazzo, leather and metal details. It’s about the balance between the solid elements and soft materials and colours.
Can you tell us about the custom-designed pieces?
KKT: On one side of the entrance, a metal pill-shaped wall panel showcases hero products, and on the other side a curvaceous, light-taupe display unit creates a funnel effect to draw customers into the store.
In the centre of the open space is a bespoke island table that we designed with our signature ‘Bean curves’. It displays various featured products, a washbasin and a bar counter with stools for customers to test out makeup products.
LF: At the back of the store is a second bespoke island where staff can do product demonstrations for customers, or run workshop events. A coffee machine and drinks bar are concealed in the timber joinery for such events.
A quirky circular hole in one of the curved display units provides a glimpse into the customer relaxation space, a cosy nook with leather seating and a small terrazzo table.
Images / Courtesy of Bean Buro
