Cajsa Carlson

Tokyo studio I IN combined handcrafted tiles with an industrial-style gridded ceiling and playful animal sculptures in a store for designer Nigo's Human Made brand in Seoul's Lotte Mall Jamsil. The lifestyle store, located inside a contemporary department store, was designed to "truly embody Human Made's philosophy, 'the future is in the past'," I IN co-founder Hiromu Yuyama told Dezeen. The store is clad in pale-green tiles To reference the past, I IN chose to clad the store with traditional Korean celadon tiles, a beloved material in South Korea. Korea began producing celadon ceramics in the 9th century AD, with the ceramic type quickly becoming admired for its pale green colour that resembles jade, and for its smooth glaze. "Many previous Human Made stores have been inspired by the character of existing old buildings," Yuyama said. "Since this project was located inside a contemporary shopping mall, we sought to express the brand's philosophy through material that has been loved and appreciated in Korea for centuries, rather than through the setting." The pale-green and blue tiles are clad in seemingly random clusters inside the 216-metre-square store, where they contrast with a light parquet wooden floor. The Human Made store is located in Seoul's Lotte Mall Jamsil The patterns of the individual tiles in the Human Made shop also added a decorative aspect. "The celadon tiles are handcrafted; each one has subtle variations in colour, and when you see up close, delicate crackle patterns – known as craquelure – become visible," Yuyama