Showroom Playbag Prague

Playbag is a young brand from Zlín, with its bags, backpacks, belts, and recently even footwear becoming increasingly common. Its founder, Aleš Loch, views Playbag as an open project that is constantly evolving and improving. He adopts the same approach to everything he designs. Time becomes a studied factor that affects the form of individual products and series. Function, quality, simplicity, and aesthetics are principles that were also meant to appear in the newly opened showroom. Last year, Aleš Loch invited two architectural studios to design the new space for the brand's first showroom in Prague. Our design was chosen, which was characterized by variability linked to an emphasis on craftsmanship. In close collaboration with Aleš Loch, the proposal for the interior was finalized along with the realization of individual atypical elements.

The showroom is located in a small ground-level space in the old buildings of Žižkov on Bořivojova street, in a location that previously functioned as a shop. The main room measures 5.5 x 3.5 m and is connected to a smaller room serving as a storage area and background. The basis of the design was to utilize the principles of Playbag, which emphasize functional, simple, yet design-driven solutions through raw materials such as steel, concrete, or plywood. Each of these elements is treated playfully and with attention to detail. The base of the interior is the floor, where layers of old linoleum have been uncovered down to the original concrete, which has been sanded and covered with a transparent UV varnish, including all the cracks and imperfections that the concrete contained. The installation of the new floor was symbolically carried out personally by Aleš Loch. The floor, as the foundation of the interior, can in a smaller scale evoke the industrial character of Zlín factories, a feeling that is further deepened by additional artifacts that have been brought from Zlín to remind of the place from which Playbag originates.

Another distinctive element is the protruding wall surrounding half of the space. The wall is made of perforated unpolished spruce plywood, on which products, visuals, and styling accessories can be easily installed; the system is flexible, allowing the displayed composition to change and adapt to the current collection. The space also features a mobile rack and a mirror with a display case for smaller items. This equipment is designed as an atypical delicate object, made from ribbed steel (rebar) and coated with galvanic zinc, giving the structure a golden-yellow color. The elements of the rack are connected by a leather strap, allowing for a more compact or, conversely, a more spatially pronounced stand. Stability is ensured by weighting with a grinding stone found in the factory hall of the Zlín area.

Throughout the space, one can observe combinations of the contemporary with the old, time-tested. An industrial steel chair once sat an entire generation of Zlín seamstresses, and the rolls of fabric that serve as weights for the racks once ground the edges of tools. The slab that serves as both a workbench and sales counter also refers to craftsmanship traditions. In fact, the showroom of Playbag is also meant to serve as a service area for cases where a component of a backpack gets damaged; you can have it repaired directly at the counter. Authenticity is a fundamental essence for Playbag .