About
"We works for present in the future." Various Associates’s design philosophy centers on rational optimization across architecture, space, products, and concepts, aiming to crafting an original and exciting experience. The studio engages in the design and research of high-quality, experimental projects. Starting with the programs of space, VA adopts forward-looking perspectives, conduct material research, employ open thinking, challenge conventions, and focus on details and refined quality to create unique value for each project. Every project crafted by Various Associates features its own distinct spatial identity. Additionally, as a collaborative platform for artists and designers, Various Associates seeks to merge creativity and technology to explore the past, present, and future, pushing the boundaries of design creation.
As a creative design studio, Various Associates continually explores and creates new possibilities. Its design services encompass commercial and retail spaces, F&B, exhibition spaces (for cities, enterprises, and cultural and fashion purposes), complexes, hotels, schools, public buildings, single-family houses, urban planning, and more. It strives to propose new solutions from fundamental and energy consumption perspectives, including material research, product R&D, and design. Cross-disciplinary cooperation remains a key direction for Various Associates. So far, it has won numerous prestigious international design awards, and its works have been frequently featured in various professional media outlets worldwide, including FRAME, Domus, Wallpaper, Archdaily, Designboom, and gooood, etc.
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Co-founder
Press
Material Development
VA ( lab )
Avenue & Son
Location:Shanghai, China
Client: Avenue & Son
Project category:landscape design/interior design
From street to avenue
AVENUE & SON is a skateboard brand co-founded by four professional skaters in Shanghai in 2014. The brand’s concept “from street to avenue” carries the pursuit of freedom and individuality, typical of street culture.
Guided by skateboarding spirit, AVENUE & SON has become one of the global cultural crazes among youngsters with its street culture-rooted DNA and brand concept. In only a few years, AVENUE & SON has accumulated millions of fans and sponsored more than 20 professional skaters at home and abroad. The brand is dedicated to passing on the spirit of “fearlessness, freedom and perseverance” to the young generation.
In such a context, AVENUE & SON’s first flagship store and street structure park are opened in Taikoo Li Qiantan, Shanghai.
Luxury and streets
Integrating fashion, lifestyle, sports and art, Qiantan is an ideal city model zone developed by Lujiazui Group, and one of the future core areas of Shanghai. Centering on the concept of WELLNESS, the commercial complex Taikoo Li Qiantan combines longstanding luxury brands with street culture, art with fashion trends, and shows a lifestyle represented by skateboarding.
Designed by Various Associates, the first AVENUE & SON flagship store in China is sited at WOOD HOUSE in Taikoo Li Qiantan. The store is integrated with the brand’s street-structure skate park, which echoes Oriental Sports Center (“the Crown of the Sea”), both representing the most chill structures in the area. Its relationship with the Oriental Sports Center also makes this site more playful and significant.
The first marble skate park in the world
Skateboarding, as one of the official sports of at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, is no longer a street sport unrecognized by the mainstream. Various Associates hoped to break the stereotype that “street equals cheap”. Therefore, the team created the world’s first marble skate park to blur the traditional boundaries between street and mainstream cultures, allowing visitors to focus on the cultural and aesthetic aspects of skateboarding. Furthermore, the park also provides a creative and quality space for products derived from street culture.
In the context of current fashion trends, commercial venues are beginning to embrace the street and provide outdoor activity space for brands. Meanwhile, young consumer groups are increasingly taking skateboarding as a fashionable lifestyle. Designed by Various Associates, the street culture-rooted skateboard park in Taikoo Li Qiantan, which gathers many luxury brands, is a response to the fusion of different cultures.
In order to break the boundary between culture and commerce, the designers tried to strike a balance between luxury and street. Starting from the youth’s passion for sports culture, the team conceived a gathering place for skaters, which is both outdoors and indoors, practical and fun. This marble skate park is a realistic integration of street culture and luxury, and a significant urban public space in a commercial setting.
The street-structure park carries multiple functions for skateboarding, leisure, cafe and pop-up activities. The outdoor marble kiosk is a coffee and beverage area, and the bronze AVENUE & SON logo is inlaid into the stone by traditional craftsmanship. The classic street light that represents the brand’s street culture guides the way through the night.
As early as 2016, AVENUE & SON, as the first representative of skateboarding culture in China, started engaging with consumers in pop-up stores, and expanding the boundary of skateboarding culture through diverse activities. 7 years later, the brand has not only attracted the attention of skaters, musicians, artists and other groups, but also has become the preferred choice for young people. On behalf of Chinese skateboarding culture, it has interacted with many brands from around the world, such as Louis Vuitton, Dior, Fred, Off-White™ and Palace, to convey new ideas.
“When we asked the founders of A&S where they thought the best skate park was, their answer was ‘street’. As observing their daily activities, we found that steps, fences and even small ramps on the street were the skate tracks they loved and excelled at. Therefore, as approaching the design, we did not adopt curved slope commonly found in skate parks, but applied straight and oblique lines, which are more rigid, to interpret the elements of the street with an aesthetic language, and meanwhile to avoid the safety problems caused by curved spaces,” Various Associates explained.
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