The Racketectonics Archifixture is not a building, but rather a huge fixture made into a building. The new flagship store for Wada Sports is all about the racket; the racket as a product, but also as an element of the architectural design.
The inside of the shop features a large elliptical metallic structure which role is both supporting the building and embodying the rackets’ fixture. Standing at 5.5m high from floor to ceiling, the ellipse is built into two parts; the retail and the exhibition.
The retail racket products take place on the lower part of the ellipse. The design is not made for the rackets to be added later, neither it is to highlight them as a luxurious product. Here, the rackets themselves are the essence of the design. They become architectonics, the modern triglyphs and metopes. The rackets are arranged in series along the ellipse curve, aligned on three levels to facilitate access to all customers; short people, tall ones, kids and adults all can easily grab the rackets in hand and sense the difference in touch, thickness and weight. However, the efficiency of this design is not only due to the height, the configuration of the display is also game changing. The rackets are not hanged on hooks, instead they are kept perpendicular to the ellipse line using small stainless pipes. The inclination of the rackets in each height was determined to simultaneously display their design and be easy to take off and put back to their places while browsing. Aesthetically, placing the racket perpendicular to the line allows to display their side aspects in a greater number, creating a colorful pattern along the line and giving life to the space by changing its colors every time a new series is put on place.
Meanwhile, the character of the space is emphatically marked by the upper part of the ellipse. Wada Sports has acquired a significant collection of valuable rackets from all over the country. This collection includes wooden vintage rackets, rackets used by famous players, and some rackets miraculously rescued from the Great Tohoko Disaster in 2011. All of these are featured in a permanent exhibition taking place on the upper part of the elliptical shape. The rackets are displayed along the ellipse line, transforming the heart of this retail space into a museum of rackets.
The Racketectonics Archifixture is not only a way of celebrating Wada Sports 30th anniversary, but is a new conceptual metamorphosis of a commercial space into a hybrid museum transmitting the culture of racket sports to the next generations.
Established in 1976, Matsuya-Art-Works is a four decades experienced company acting in the architecture, design and construction industries. The company has a wide range of building types in the portfolio, though specialized in the commercial projects. Matsuya-Art-Works conducts projects according to the client’s business strategy and materializes it into an interior space or a completed building. Its mission is extended beyond the reception of the finalized project to guarantee a good functioning of the business. The KTX archiLAB was founded in 2006 to sustain this activity by producing high quality designs. The Japanese based company has received numerous local and international awards for its projects conducted both in Japan and foreign countries.
