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EPOP Retail Outlet
Design, make, sell.
EPOP Retail Outlet joined product design, design-build, entrepreneurship, branding, and public engagement in one collective studio. Students proposed and constructed a mobile retail environment, developed products for sale, established merchandising and operational systems, and opened the result to the public.
The project arrived at an important moment in the formation of Environmental Products of Design. The outlet became both a practical sales environment and an expression of the program's emerging identity. Students had to ask what responsible retail could mean within a culture of material abundance and environmental consequence, while also creating an experience capable of communicating the value of student design.
Studio Framing
Responsibility for an Entire System
EPOP was an experiment in giving students responsibility for an entire design ecosystem. The work was not complete when a product was fabricated or a retail proposal was presented, the class also had to determine how products would be selected, transported, displayed, priced, explained, marketed, and encountered by the public.
The course paired collective work with individual design voice. Proposal teams developed competing approaches to the outlet, while each student created products within the shared framework. Moving into construction required the class to transition from advocacy for individual ideas to responsibility for a common result.
I am especially proud of the entrepreneurial confidence the project encouraged. Students saw their work leave the studio and enter a public setting where people could handle it, respond to it, and choose to purchase it, including the more difficult question of what products deserve to exist in a world already full of things.
01 | Group
Retail Proposals
Competing pop-up retail systems, each resolving structure, configuration, cost, assembly, accessibility, and merchandising.
Framed
A repeatable timber grid becomes a flexible retail system. Modular panels create multiple display configurations while keeping setup, disassembly, transport, material sourcing, and cost legible, treating the framework as both structure and merchandising infrastructure.
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Framed proposal
Framed design system
The Algo Rhythm
Parametric structure organizes movement and display. Triangular frames, tensile elements, removable shelving, ballast, and a tessellated table create a compact retail environment with multiple configurations, using algorithmic design to coordinate circulation, visual identity, assembly, and transport.
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The Algo Rhythm proposal
The Algo Rhythm design system
The Algo Rhythm development 2
The Algo Rhythm development 3
Pop Lock and Shop
A transformable kit for products of different scales. Rolling frames combine storage, adjustable shelving, peg displays, and canopy support, with cost analysis, connection details, accessibility, compact transport, and configuration studies positioning flexibility as the proposal's primary value.
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Pop Lock and Shop proposal
Pop Lock and Shop design system
Pop Lock and Shop development 2
02 | Group
Built Outcome
Proposal work developed into a fabricated, merchandised, and publicly operated retail environment.
Built EPOP Retail Outlet
Proposal becomes public experience. The completed outlet brought structure, lighting, merchandising, identity, products, and people together. Setup and construction photographs make visible the collective labor behind an opening night that allowed the emerging EPOD program to present itself through designed objects.
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Opening night at EPOP
Retail structure setup
Shop assembly process
Product display installation
Completed product display
Retail merchandising
Outlet under construction
03 | Group
Product Collection
Individually designed objects connecting product development, fabrication, branding, merchandising, and public sale.
Designed Product Collection
Objects developed for fabrication, display, and sale. The collection includes planters, modular blocks, furniture, a mobile, and candles, together demonstrating how students translated individual design positions into products situated within a shared retail identity and a real public market.
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Rypl planters
Cairn blocks
Torii stool
Isu storage bench
Manta ray mobile
Linen and cashmere candles