Dezeen Magazine

Interior of Lynk & Co showroom

Spacon & X designs "hyper-eclectic" showroom for car dealer Lynk & Co

Danish design studio Spacon & X has carved a cave out of cardboard and installed a bare tree in the Lynk & Co car showroom in Düsseldorf, Germany.

The studio aimed for the 400-square-metre space to have more of an impact than the cars on show.

Car showroom by Spacon & X
A mesh curtain separates the car from the rest of the showroom

"The overall design is in intentional contrast to your average car dealership, with the spatial design as a louder experience than the actual product – the car," Spacon & X founding partner Svend Jacob Pedersen told Dezeen.

"The spatial design is hyper-eclectic, with a new immersive spatial experience waiting to ambush you around each corner."

Exterior of Lynk & Co
A purple light floods the showroom from the outside

Lynk & Co describes its showrooms as "clubs" from which members can buy, lease or borrow a car, and the Düsseldorf space was designed not to look like a traditional showroom from the exterior.

Instead, purple lights, clothes on hangers and a corner with a colourful sofa makes the car dealership resemble a lifestyle store.

Cave-line space inside Lynk & co
The Lynk & Co showroom contains a variety of materials

Once inside, customers are met by an unusual, cave-like space.

"The cave space is made of multiple plys of laser-cut sheets of cardboard," Pedersen said.

Cardboard cave in car showroom
Spacon & X created a cardboard cave for the store

One car is always on display inside the dealership. This sits next to the cardboard cave, and is partly hidden behind a light chain curtain.

Spacon & X worked with multiple different materials, including bare wood and aluminium, to create the Lynk & Co space.

"With the very eclectic direction of the space, a wide palette of materials have been brought into play," Pedersen explained.

"To highlight a few – cardboard has been used for the cave, to create an unexpected balance between the immersive and organic expression of the cave and a very familiar, inexpensive material like cardboard," he added.

"We have used aluminium chain curtains to create a light transparent frame around the car on display."

Meeting room with bare tree in car showroom
The meeting room has an all-pine interior

The studio also created an organic feel for the Lynk & Co meeting room, which has an all-wood interior with a pale tree at its centre.

"Another material to highlight is the all-raw pine meeting room with an actual tree stripped of the bark, underlining our appreciation of raw untreated materiality," Pedersen said.

"Melting" lamp in Lynk & Co car showroom
A "melting" streetlight features in the showroom

For the main space, Spacon & X designed a "melting" corner, with a streetlight that has bent over and chairs that appear to float into a puddle on the floor.

The showroom's "disco" bathroom has a bright-red colour palette with an op-art style black-and-white patterned floor that resembles an interior in a David Lynch film, while a fitting room has been filled with large gold baubles that appear to sprout from a wall.

Op-art bathroom in Lynk & Co showroom
The bathroom has an op-art design

"Our spatial expression creates a tapestry of diverse scenarios within the Düsseldorf store, from serene conversations to otherworldly caves," the studio said.

"We seamlessly blend contrasting elements, from warm wooden meeting rooms to rough concrete displays, and from melting furniture lounges to dazzling champagne fitting rooms."

Spacon & X has previously designed the interior for restaurant Noma's burger spinoff POPL and created a kiosk-like design library for its own Copenhagen HQ.

The photography is courtesy of Lynk & Co.

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Lynk & Co by Spacon & X
Lynk & Co by Spacon & X