Støb
A Copenhagen studio casting concrete vases, bowls and stools by hand, where every piece is one of a kind. We designed a shop where each piece sells exactly once, photographed every piece on the same grey board, and kept the sold ones as an archive.
- Client
- Støb
- Year
- 2023
- Services
- Design, Shop, Photography
- Website
- stob.example
Case study
Støb (Danish for "cast") is a two-person studio in Copenhagen that casts vases, bowls and stools in concrete, by hand, in moulds that change a little every time. About thirty pieces a week, no two alike. It sold them on a shop platform built for products with stock, which meant every piece was a "product" with a quantity of one, and every sold piece left a dead link behind it.
What we did
Design. A shop where the piece is the product: one photograph, its size and weight, the mix and the finish, and a price. No quantities, no variants, no "only one left" banners, because there is always only one.
Shop. New pieces go on sale on Thursdays at ten. The shop holds a piece in a visitor's basket for ten minutes so two people can't buy it at once, and a sold piece doesn't disappear: it moves to the archive with a small "sold" mark, so links people shared keep working and the studio's history stays visible.
Photography. Marta photographed every piece on the same grey board, in the same north light from the studio window, so the shop looks like one collection rather than thirty photo shoots. She then taught the studio to do it themselves, with one light, one board and a tape mark on the floor.
What changed
Thursday releases now sell out in under twenty minutes, and the archive of sold pieces gets more visits than the shop does on every other day of the week. Several commissions started with someone pointing at a piece in it.
