Passages of Life
Audo Copenhagen’s new retail space presents an intimate exploration of the home.
Reflecting the desire for a more personalised shopping experience, the new Audo Concept Shop in Copenhagen evokes a sense of familiarity, relaxation and connection as a retail space that feels like home.
Together with Christian Møller Andersen, artistic director at Kinfolk, the dramatic transformation from static design store to familiar residential space taps into the spirit that defines Audo Copenhagen, placing focus on community, softly minimal design and innovative thinking.
“Audo wanted to create something intimate and personal - more like a home than a traditional shop,” says Andersen of the space at Audo House in Copenhagen. Setting out to rethink how it could become more experiential and sensorial, where once was an open space with no obvious beginning or end, today Audo Concept Shop encourages exploration and discovery as customers wind their way through a series of rooms, each with their own character and furnished with the objects that would commonly be found there.
“The shop layout resembles a home, with different "rooms" that emulate the feel of a hallway, living room, dining room, study and dressing room,” Andersen explains. “This layout creates a sense of familiarity and encourages customers to explore and interact with the products in a more intimate setting that feels more relevant, more inspiring.”
Warm and natural materials and colours, such as wood, stone and saturated earthy tones that demarcate each room, help to create a cosy and welcoming ambience that makes customers feel at ease while browsing.
“Moving away from traditional Nordic colours gives the space more character. While inspired by palazzos in Italy and the colours of the Mediterranean, the hues selected for the walls nod to our Danish cultural heritage too: they reference Modernist furniture from the 1950s and 60s and Copenhagen’s Thorvaldsen Museum. It is Scandinavian design history through a modern lens,” notes Andersen. “The colours are cohesive yet divide the space into separate rooms, each with its own unique expression.”