Italian designer Luca Nichetto has opened the first physical store for ZaoZuo, the Chinese startup furniture brand for which he is creative director.

Nichetto designed the interiors for the Beijing showroom to resemble a blank sheet of grid paper. A latticework of white, square shelving crisscrosses the 300-sqm space.

ZaoZuo products represent one of the first forays by a Chinese design brand into creating original, high-quality but lost-cost designer furniture, according to Dezeen.com.

In the Indigo shopping centre in the Chaoyang district, the store uses the grid of shelves to showcase products individually rather than display them in groups.

“Nichetto instead chose to focus on the detail of each and every product,” says the brand. “The customer is inspired to create their own combinations.”

The brand refers to the concept as “no display”. Objects are arranged from floor to ceiling so they can be viewed from various angles.

Nichetto also created custom modules that can be arranged in different ways, working with local architecture firm Damu on the design. The furniture is arranged into colour zones.

ZaoZuo, which means “design and production”, launched at Beijing Design Week last September. 

The brand is the brainchild of Chinese graphic designer/entrepreneur Shu Wei, who approached Nichetto to be her creative director.

“I started thinking maybe it could be interesting to have European designers working for Chinese companies that only want to sell in China, and also to educate the Chinese customers that a copycat is not what they need to have,” says Nichetto.

ZaoZuo already has an online presence, including European designs.