Sense of Space: The Aesop Experience in Manila

Kanto talks with Marianne Lardilleux, Aesop Global Head of Store Design, on how Manila's rich architectural patina inspired its SM Aura and Manila stores

Interview Patrick Kasingsing
Images 
Aesop

Aesop
Aesop’s latest outpost in Manila, Aesop SM Aura

Welcome to Kanto, Marianne! Thank you for your time. Let’s start with the basics. What informs the location of your new Aesop stores in the Philippines? How has the chosen context played a part in the resulting design of your latest store, Aesop SM Aura?

Marianne Lardilleux, Aesop’s Global Head of Store Design: Our priority is to serve the needs of our customers by choosing sites that are convenient to them. Within this imperative, we consider not only well-trodden paths but also locations that carry the promise of fresh discovery or revival.

For Aesop SM Aura, we sought to create a haven of calm within the mall context while also paying homage to the splendor of Manila’s architectural heritage. Our in-house design team looked to the harmonious lines of the city’s Art Deco Metropolitan Theatre—built in 1931—while also studying the gridded, luminous language of traditional Capiz shell façades.

What were some of the challenges the team encountered in realizing this store?

Aesop SM Aura is similar in size to our 2021 store, Aesop Rockwell, at approximately 50 square meters. One challenge that always presents when realizing a store of this size is finding the appropriate balance between activity and retreat within a relatively compact setting.

A perennial challenge with malls is that they can be noisy, glossy, and demanding on the senses. As with all our shopping center stores, one of our primary goals is to provide a reprieve from sensorial bombardment. With Aesop SM Aura, we created a space of subdued acoustics through the use of articulated matte wood wool paneling, and visual respite with a palette of calming moss green and thoughtful lighting.

Aesop

In formulating the look for this store, can you describe the imagined buyer profile?

Aesop was created for the curious-minded. Our customers in the Philippines are thoughtful, well-read, and worldly in their outlook. They value quality and sincerity. They encounter us most frequently via friends or family who have recommended our products, or through the sensory appeal of our spaces. These are the common threads, enduring throughout the company’s growth in the country.

Unlike other Aesop stores abroad, this branch was designed by your in-house team. What steps did the in-house design team take to ensure that the store will be an authentic reflection of its locale beyond surface-level skinning and tired tropes?

In each of our stores around the world, we aim to marry a locally relevant design vocabulary—drawing material and conceptual inspiration from each location—with an underlying aesthetic and attitudinal consistency.

For Aesop SM Aura, our in-house design team learned from the cultural understandings that emerged in the design processes of our first two Manila stores and undertook meticulous research into the history of the site and its context. Our designers visited Manila and spent a significant amount of time traversing the neighborhood and interacting with our local staff to understand the needs and desires for our third space in the Philippines. The team gravitated towards the poetics of Manila’s heritage architecture and was guided by the enduring local presence of the Art Deco movement.

Aesop

Will Aesop be designing more stores via your in-house team or are you open to partnering with local talent? There’s a rising number of precocious architectural talent in the country at present.

Building an internal design team has allowed designers to embed themselves within the company, thereby getting a much broader and richer understanding of Aesop, its nuances, and the precise needs of our spaces. In this process, we have accumulated a collective body of knowledge that has allowed for many important progressions in our design approach.

Having said this, we find a great deal of joy and inspiration in working with external architects and are always open to partnerships. We build relationships over time, and through mutual respect.

Connections happen in myriad ways, but we often seek out architects after seeing the work they have done, or after discovering a compelling reference. We present our objectives and allow the architect to interpret this with original concepts while providing guidance on the operational details necessary to make each space functional and successful.

The precise architectural style of our partners matters less than the excellence of their work, their commitment to the creative process, and the integrity with which they perform their mission.

Going back to Aesop SM Aura…The press release makes mention of finding inspiration in Manila’s “decaying architectural splendor”. At first glance, that seems like a rather negative or unorthodox source of inspiration, but there must be something you are optimistic about to use that quality as a starting point. Why this particular quality, and why do you think this would resonate more with your patrons?

There is beauty in the aged, and wisdom in the decay. Rather than any negative perception, our in-house design team found richness in the patina and honesty in the imperfections of some of Manila’s heritage buildings. These details carry stories of the past. Cities age, we age, and within that aging is an ability to recognize our origins and our desires to preserve and embody those tales for future encounters.

Aesop
Aesop Rockwell, Aesop’s second store in the Philippines, similarly sized to the SM Aura branch

As mentioned, your team drew inspiration from Art Deco landmark, the Metropolitan Theater, for your SM Aura store. In what ways did the resulting design pay homage to this Manila landmark?

The Metropolitan Theater is an awe-inspiring building dating back to the 1930s, designed by Filipino architect Juan M. Arellano. While the MET has now been fully restored, its walls carry a history of damage, survival, and repair. For Aesop SM Aura, details from the historic theatre’s original interiors are reimagined as terraced plaster walls where verdant hues—inspired by the MET’s original interior palette—wash over every surface. Within these stepped frames, a grid of wood wool tiles resembles capiz shell installations that can be seen on the theatre’s façade. The tiles throughout the space glow with the nurturing radiance of the overhead lantern, recalling the capiz lamps that stand at the Metropolitan Theatre’s entrance.

What were some of the special materials utilized for your SM Aura outpost? Can you let us in on the decisions that resulted in the selection of the moss-green shade?

Some of the materials used for Aesop SM Aura include matte vibration-finished stainless steel, a humble and familiar utilitarian material; exposed stainless steel plumbing, drainage grills, and garden taps that weave an emotional connection to the enabler of hygiene and hydration, and color-pigmented concrete that forms the continuous ground plane of the store. Forest Stewardship-certified plywood is kept untreated for all internal joinery carcasses and dressed in natural paint throughout. Low-VOC, water-based paint wraps the walls and ceiling. Wood wool tiles reference Capiz shell installations while absorbing sound and enhancing the store’s air quality.

The moss-green shade of the store provides a sense of calm and serenity—it was chosen after our designers saw some photographs of the MET’s original interior, whose dimpled walls were washed in a similar hue.

The traditional capiz finish beloved of heritage houses is alluded to within the store, with the shell finish represented instead with wood wool fibers. What informed the use of this eco-friendly material? What were the challenges of making use of actual capiz shell finish for the store?

While our in-house design team was enamored with the traditional capiz finish they encountered in Manila, the capiz shells are animal by-products. Aesop is committed to ensuring that our formulations and stores do not use any animal-derived ingredients. We are proud to be Cruelty-Free International Leaping Bunny approved.

When thinking of how to best integrate the capiz reference within our design, a non-literal ode felt most appropriate. Rather than use something purely decorative, we paired the geometry and patterning of the traditional capiz shell installations with a contemporary and responsibly-sourced material that would maximize the acoustic functioning of this design element.

The timber fibers absorb sound and enhance air quality, ensuring serene repose for customers and consultants. Upon the store’s decommissioning, the tiles will be composted and returned their richness to the soil.

Aesop Greenbelt, the skincare brand’s first store in Manila, takes after the brutalist forms of Leandro Locsin‘s old Ayala Museum

What factors cemented the inclusion of the Fragrance Library for this particular branch? How did the design team showcase this new store feature?

Our olfactory program of unconventional aromas has grown since we last opened a store in the Philippines and so we were eager to invite curious noses to explore and ascertain their preferences. At the Fragrance Library, visitors to the store may infuse an item of clothing with their chosen Eau de Parfum—a memento of the fragrant recital to bring along into the outside world.

You’ve taken inspiration from some iconic examples of architecture in the Philippines for all three branches of your stores. Does Aesop have an overarching narrative that governs the look and stories of each upcoming Philippine store? If yes, what story and qualities of the country does Aesop want to tell and showcase?

Our in-house design team often favors architectural references, but this is a coincidence for the three stores in the Philippines. Each Aesop store design seeks to fit harmoniously within the local context and express respect for the unique locale it inhabits. Such an approach is rarely linear and we do not have an overarching narrative that governs our approach to stores in any country. Most of our design decisions are necessarily arrived at through the concept design and design development processes. •

Special thanks to Monday Off World for making this interview happen

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