Studio X designed two China Mobile flagships in Hong Kong, built around 5G and IoT rather than handset transactions.
Studio X created a new retail concept for China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the world with almost a billion subscribers, and delivered it as two Hong Kong flagship stores.
Process
Concept Design
Schematic Design
Detail Design
Tender Documentation
Tender Management
Construction Support
Post-Completion Review
The brief began with a question rather than a layout: was the existing store concept still aligned to the business? We took the view that it was not. The stores were built around handsets, SIM cards and accessories - a sales-led environment for a company whose future lay in 5G and the Internet of Things. Our concept moved them from selling to teaching.
The first store opened on the corner of Des Voeux Road and Pottinger Street in Central, at 3,000 sqft. The second followed on Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, at 2,500 sqft. Both are arranged over two levels, and both give an entire showroom to 5G-enabled technology - gesture-controlled robotic arms, augmented and mixed reality gaming, and smart home systems - so that customers could experience the network rather than be told about it.
The Mannings Health Pod — a glass-enclosed space for rapid wellness assessments, positioned as the store's centrepiece and primary point of differentiation.
A spacious check-out, designed as a clearly differentiated fixture-set in order to allow customers to locate with ease.
NFC-enabled 'lift & learn' product displays allow customers to access detailed product information in the moment, without staff intervention.
One concept, delivered twice. The design was developed as a system so that the second store could be rolled out without redesigning the first.
Selected views
(Approach)A telecoms store where the product is invisible. The design had to make an intangible network something a customer could walk into, touch and understand.
Progress
A record of the project as it developed on site, capturing key construction milestones from first fix through to completion.
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Floor plan showing the store layout — zoned to balance product browsing, technology interaction, and the Health Pod consultation area within a 3,200 sqft footprint.
A sketched birdseye to study the relationship between a hero mid-floor fixture and a corresponding wall bay.
Concept planogram sketches to help us determine the arrangement and hierarchy of merchandise.
A store designed to explain a network rather than sell a handset - and built twice from the same set of rules.
Both stores sit in prime CBD locations - Central and the Tsim Sha Tsui retail spine - where the cost of floor space demands that every square foot earns its place. Rather than fill that space with stock, we gave it to demonstration: an entire showroom dedicated to 5G-enabled IoT, from gesture-enabled robotic arms to augmented and mixed reality gaming and smart home technology.
Studio X's scope ran from concept design through schematic and detail design, tender documentation and on-site management. Because the concept was developed as a repeatable system rather than a single fit-out, the second store could be delivered without starting again.
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