Dior opened a pop-up store at Jumeirah beach in Dubai. The initiative, which coincides with the Expo currently underway, included two 3D printed pavilions created in collaboration with Italian 3D printer manufacturer WASP and set up at the Four Seasons Hotel in Nammos.
The Dubai Expo pop-up store project is made up of two cylindrical modules, 3D printed by combining clay, sand and natural fibers through WASP’s sustainable construction 3D printing technology. The irony (and the lesson) is that WASP developed this technology to produce sustainable, low-cost housing in the world’s poorest areas, as WASP’s founder timely pointed out:
“Life is strange,” WASP founder Massimo Moretti wrote on his personal Facebook page, “you start out developing a process to provide a home as a birthright to every human. You work on it for a decade, self-funding all research and development. Then comes Dior, a company that represents the world’s most refined luxury, and they ask you to print their stores. And they offer to finance your development costs.”
The stores were built with each layer different from the next, with the external walls presenting the same style as the typical Dior purses. Inside, creations celebrated the “dolce vita” presenting the Dior Riviera collection by Maria Grazia Chiuri.
The external wall patterns presented an extreme challenge since an error in one layer could compromise the entire build, just like a CD with a scratch. The WASP team organized the entire project, through customs, transport, assembly and managing the print codes remotely from thousands of kilometers away, in 50°C heat.
Making of a Dior pop-up store [photogallery]
