THINK all supermarkets look the same? Think again. Across the globe, a handful of architects are turning the humble weekly shop into something extraordinary – part art installation, part social experiment.
Whether it’s Mallorca’s brutalist bunker, Tokyo’s tiny red treasure, Estonia’s boulder-bound store, Bangkok’s green markets or Venice’s frescoed wonder, these supermarkets prove that architecture can turn even the most mundane chore into a moment of wonder.
Next time you’re trundling down the fluorescent aisles of your local chain, remember: somewhere out there, someone’s doing their food shop under a ceiling of recycled crates, beside a 280-year-old dried-food shop, or beneath a frescoed ceiling – and loving every minute of it.
Mallorca’s brutalist masterpiece
Mallorca’s Voramar Supermarket is shaking up the grocery game in Pollensa. Designed by homegrown design firm Minimal Studio, the project – nicknamed Plastic Box – looks more like a modern art museum than a place to grab milk and tomatoes.
The building’s stark concrete shell and dark portals give off serious Bond-villain energy, while the ceiling inside is made from more than a thousand recycled plastic crates, filtering the sunlight into geometric shadows that shift through the day.
The project won Gold at this year’s Japan International Design Pioneer Awards, and it’s easy to see why. It’s not just a cool space – it’s a clever critique of consumer culture.
The crates, once symbols of mass consumption, now form the heart of an eco-friendly ventilation and rainwater system.
“We wanted to expose what’s usually hidden,”explains a spokesman. “It’s raw, honest architecture – but with a conscience.”
Tokyo’s slim red treasure
In the heart of Tokyo sits Yagicho-Honten, a dried-food grocery store with a 280-year history of selling essentials for Japanese cuisine.
The store occupies the ground floor of a slim, nine-storey office block designed in the late 1970s, and it’s just 3.65 metres wide.
Tokyo-based Schemata Architects recently renovated the space, painting all fixtures and fittings the same vibrant red as the building’s façade.
Wooden display boxes, painted the same shade and stacked to resemble a bustling marketplace, create a dynamic, immersive shopping environment.
At the centre sits a cash-counter island that doubles as a demonstration kitchen. The design encourages a ‘non-hierarchical communication between hosts and guests,’according to the architects.
A supermarket built around a boulder
In Haabneeme, Estonia, supermarket Viimsi refused to blast through a huge rock sitting in its foundations – and simply built around it.
Discovered during foundation work in 2014, this 22-metre-wide erratic rock, that was left there when glaciers retreated in the last Ice Age, was almost destroyed until locals rallied to protect it.
So the developers built the shopping centre around it, honouring its place in the land and the community.
Shoppers at this quirky store now pick up groceries beside a towering natural boulder, a surreal reminder of the landscape just outside. It’s a practical decision turned design statement – and a magnet for curious tourists who want to see ‘the shop with the rock’.
Bangkok goes green
In Bangkok, supermarkets are sprouting new life – literally. Across the Thai capital, architects are embracing vertical gardens and living façades, integrating hydroponic farming with shopping.
One striking example is The Commons, in Thonglor… not a supermarket per se, but a community market where lush greenery wraps the façade and herbs grow beside the café counters.
It’s part of a growing trend across Southeast Asia to make urban retail spaces greener, cleaner and more sustainable.
Venice’s elegant grocery revival
In the heart of Venice, a Spar supermarket has breathed new life into a historic building that once housed a movie theatre.
With high ceilings and beautifully restored frescoes, the store turns grocery shopping into a truly unique experience.
More than €2.5 million was spent renovating the space while preserving its artistic heritage. Lighting is 100% LED, and shelving is low to allow full appreciation of the frescoes.
Even the cooling units have been designed to reuse heat for warming the store and producing hot water, blending sustainability with elegance.
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