Fully Booked, Rockwell - A critique

Kudos to Arch. Joey Yupangco on his work
with the Fully Booked branch at Rockwell’s 3^rd floor. Very well
designed, well thought off and well executed. 
He starts off by continuing lines of sight on plan, extending the
octagonal grid of the mall’s atrium well into the store. He creates intriguing
processional spaces and unique niches of space within the store by playing
around with levels. Of course, this also creates volumes of storage space
underneath the elevated platforms, this just goes to show that you can create a
lot of space by thinking in 3 dimensions, instead of the normal 2d plan view.

 

He makes the books the centerpiece of the
design, by showcasing them, just as a museum would. It is technically, a museum
of commercial knowledge, wherein people can literally lose themselves for
hours, because of the disorienting grids, but I guess that’s the point. You
rarely walk into a bookstore knowing what you want, so this layout allows you
to browse through the books in a spiraling storyline of A to Z. My dad first
pointed the shop out as an example of good design by an architect dabbling into
interiors, and I totally agree, and the thing is, we both tend to be very
kuripot with our design compliments. Galeng! Luhfeht! Asteeg!

 

Oh… and by the way, the design execution
isn’t as expensive as it may seem, in terms of costing and construction, the
shelves are very basic, with seemingly randomly painted or varnished intervals,
almost everything is painted in FWE white, the lights and the steel elevated
platforms, along with the granite floors would probably amount to the largest
chunk of the expense. The aluminum screening walls are also a nice touch, but
the workmanship tends to be a bit rough, and the design of the screen although
unique in the local setting, is too Libeskindish. Aside from a few highlight
sculptural ceiling forms, which by the way, are done in basic furring and
gypsum, the rest of the “up-space” is composed of the shop’s exposed,
white-painted utilities. The ceiling forms also play a great role as an
orientational device, silently and subversively gliding you from one node to
another.

 

All-in-all, this shop is a great example of
what a good architect can do to your business – save you money, create a buzz,
make things more efficient, showcase your product, and give you and your
customers a feel-good kind of environment; nothing chop-suey here, its puro,
everything was pinag-isipan at pinag-tiyagaan. Its good that real designers
like him are given the chance by clients to execute their thoughts in the way
they want. I can’t wait to get to work on a shop myself, sana in the future, ganun din magiging
clients ko.