Paper Store — New Delhi, India

In an age of digital communication, stationary shops are an increasing rarity. New Delhi’s Paper Store, however, has revisited the charm of well-crafted office tools, albeit with a contemporary spin. Designed by local firm Architecture Discipline, the shop is tucked away on the ground floor of a hotel, and its limited space — it measures just 3.5 x 5 sq m — offered the designers not only the challenge to create a retail area that encouraged browsing, but one that also reflected the artisan quality of the products on sale, including custom-made invitations, books and notepads. This has been realised with wooden dowels that emerge from the walls, which function as shelving and can be recomposed to accommodate different items. Each protrusion juts out at a unique length to create an illusion of a curvilinear lamina, which in turn acts as a second skin. Elsewhere, smoked maple has been put to good use and utilised on both the walls and ceilings to gently harmonise with other subtle, yet comforting details — a frangipani tree, for example — that one would not normally associate with a stationary shop.