The store is located in a tiny 10m2 space on the JR Shinjuku station in Tokyo, which presented a challenge to the architects.

Given that this very busy station concourse has many competing colourful shops and signs, the architects were tasked with making the store stand out and be instantly recognisable.

The answer, for Torafu, was to make the whole shop an enormous signboard, and they applied a large logotype over the entire back wall. Contrasting the black walls, floors and ceiling with the white environment that the shop is situated in, also served to make Papabubble stand out from the crowd.

The wall also serves as a merchandise display for the products sold in the shop, and Torafu also inlaid the Papabubble logotype into the checkout counter, using the idea of a sweet that reveals the same pattern no matter where it is cut, much like a stick of rock.

Images © Takumi Ota