At the end of 2024, a new store Alto was opened in Slovenian capital city – Ljubljana. A demanding and complex project, designed by ARHIMETRICS architects, founded by Dare Vasiljević and Tanja Špan Vasiljević, embraces the city's micro location. This is a project where architects saw a potential instead of fear of history layers uncovered beneath the technical walls and ceilings added over decades of previous activity, with the intention to preserve them. Like Dana Tomić Hughes wrote in her last Weekly Love letter: designers who see possibility, where others see problems.
The historical traces, with which the project engages in a deeply creative dialogue, generate a layered depth that ARHIMETRICS has emphasized through a series of spatial elements thoughtfully placed inside the store.
Multi brand store Alto highlighting the concept of layered memories, urban moments, and the interplay of historical and contemporary materials. Their approach is modern in form, functions and innovative use of materials. Use of a rich colour palette, is almost a signature of ARHIMETRICS architects. The design orchestrates a sequence of spaces, establishing a visual dialogue between the interior and street.
The space functions as a square (the intersection of two streets, which as one of the rare buildings offers a corner entrance), where the character changes depending on where we stand in the space and what the shopper is interested in. Is it the shoes with a semi-circular curved line or the perfume department, where the shelves "float" along the wavy curtain made of corrugated roof...in between, the clothes, on stainless steel holders, the wardrobes are hidden in the semi-circular wrapping of the sneaker expo, placed on a soft carpeted floor so that the step is soft and comfortable when
we have to take off the old shoe, just to try the new one. The contrast between the recovered historical elements and the interventions that redesign and reorganize the space is evident throughout Alto store, as are the deliberately unfinished open ceiling that’s seem to reflect an openness in the project's concept. The delicate intervention involved clearing the space of the incongruous additions and layers that had accumulated over the decades, obscuring its historical essence.
Throughout the interior design of the Alto store, architects were limited in investment, but the result is still diverse, dynamic, and inviting. Text description by the architects.
