Eisenhauer
Directly adjacent to the city centre of Leipzig, the people at Eisenhauer celebrate writing culture and office organisation in their minimalistically and soberly designed premises by KO/OK Architektur.
Structure & Order
This brand for high-end office equipment and straight-forward graphic design owes its name to the “Eisenhower Principle”, a method of self-organisation. Directly adjacent to the city centre of Leipzig, the people at Eisenhauer celebrate writing culture and office organisation in their minimalistically and soberly designed premises. The retail store is situated in a multi-storey, large GDR housing estate from the 1950s and shaped like a piece of cake due to its urbanistic situation and location.
Space & Tripartition
From a spatial perspective, the retail store is tripartite: Towards the street, the largest and highest room boasts three tall shop windows facing southwest, the central area consists of a high room with no natural lighting, while at the back, a low-ceilinged and narrow room borders on the kitchenette and the restroom.
Curtains separate these three spaces from each other and subdivide them into a showroom, a storage and workshop space, and an office area. If necessary, for example when hosting events, the central room can be connected with the showroom.
Owing to their shape, to the pillars and trusses as well as to their differing ceiling heights all room layouts are geometrically disturbing. The installations and the furniture are freed from that and placed between the constructive elements of the rooms, opening a playful dialogue with the architecture. This playing area is bordered by a large sales counter on one side and filing cabinets on the other, with radially arranged cornice luminaires highlighting the store set-up.
Systematic & Flexible
The custom-designed Eisenhauer furnishing system is based on a quadratic base module. Modules can be twisted in relation to another and – theoretically – offer endless combinations on the X-, Y- and Z-axis. A jet black, power-coated steel frame serves as the basis upon which solid oak wood boxes of varying heights can be piled, thus enabling a configuration as table, sideboard or shelf. Different combinations and twists lead to the formation of islands in the room that can be used for presentation in all directions. Thanks to its flexible structure and expandability, the system can be adapted to changes in the range of products, and the store set-up can be rearranged at any time.
