Location: Fukuoka, Japan

Design Team: TORAFU ARCHITECTS

Area: 860 m²

Year: 2026

Design Collaboration: Misako Kidokoro

Structural Design: OHNO-JAPAN

Lighting Design: BRANCH LIGHTING DESIGN

Sound Design and Production: WHITELIGHT

Construction: kurikindi

Counter Production: LIFE Works

Photography: Daici Ano

Design Features: NUBIAN FUKUOKA occupies a new commercial building in Daimyo, central Fukuoka. The first NUBIAN store in Kyushu and the brand's largest flagship to date, it extends across 860 m² on the first and second floors and part of the third. Retail occupies the lower two levels, while stock and staff functions sit above. TORAFU ARCHITECTS retains the display language developed across earlier stores, but avoids imposing a single atmosphere, treating light and sound as parallel materials for organising space.

The ground floor uses black, white and exposed concrete as a restrained field. Illuminated boxes hover above two long rows of hanging rails, casting light onto the clothes while concealed uplighting reveals the depth of the open services overhead. A street-facing pop-up area gives the facade an evolving presence. Custom speakers above the display counter work with omnidirectional cubes so sound gains distance and depth across the open floor rather than remaining attached to isolated devices.

The stair between levels is enclosed by the code-required bulkhead and a functional parapet. Black treads, inclined walls and light descending from above turn it into a brief chamber of compression. Visitors leave the darker acoustic field below, move through a tightly directed turn and arrive within a brighter, more open second floor. The change in atmosphere is experienced gradually through the body rather than delivered as an abrupt scene change.

Upstairs, industrial aluminium profiles form an almost floor-wide grid. Components normally associated with machinery and structural support are enlarged to architectural scale, accommodating brand zones, glazed displays, linear lighting and speakers. Repetition is tempered by openings, transparent surfaces and changing display density. Six custom-coloured OJAS TOKYO ROKUJO speakers are distributed through the framework, producing a high-resolution soundstage distinct from the ground floor.

The project's strength lies less in giving sound a conspicuous shape than in allowing listening to participate in spatial division. Suspended light boxes and dark surfaces give the lower level focus and weight; silver framing and even illumination make the upper sound field feel lighter and more diffuse. Lights, speakers, rails and vitrines belong to one constructional order, turning retail from a backdrop for objects into a place where the body measures distance through light and sound.

Design Team: TORAFU ARCHITECTS was founded in 2004 by Koichi Suzuno and Shinya Kamuro. Suzuno studied at Tokyo University of Science and Yokohama National University before working with Coelacanth K&H and Kerstin Thompson Architects in Melbourne. Kamuro graduated from Meiji University and its graduate school, then worked at Jun Aoki & Associates. Their different professional backgrounds established a practice comfortable moving between buildings, interiors and objects.

Working from an architectural mode of thought, the studio spans architecture, interiors, exhibition environments, products, installations and film. Its projects often begin with furniture, components or familiar objects, asking how a small design decision might expand to influence a room, a building or the city. This inside-out approach allows material, equipment and display systems to become conceptual starting points rather than finishing elements.

Selected works include TEMPLATE IN CLASKA, NIKE 1LOVE, House in Kohoku, airvase and Gulliver Table. Light Loom received the Grand Prize at the 2011 Elita Design Award, and airvase entered the permanent collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2015; more recent recognition includes iF Design Awards and Good Design Awards. NUBIAN FUKUOKA extends this cross-scale practice by turning speakers, lighting and industrial aluminium framing into an architectural order perceived through the body.