PORTFOLIO

Elze Kurt

ELEMENTS AND EFFETCS OF COMMERCE | 2025

ELEMENTS AND EFFETCS OF COMMERCE | 2025

ELEMENTS AND EFFECTS OF COMMERCE

In 2025, at KABK in The Hague, I completed research into retail architecture as a cultural and spatial phenomenon, examining how commercial environments shape perception, desire, and the experience of consumption. The work looked beyond function, focusing on the emotional and sensory power of materials, atmosphere, and spatial design.

A central case study was de Bijenkorf, where I analysed how elements such as glass, polished surfaces, lighting, and texture contribute to the experience of the department store and influence the way commercial space is perceived.

The research was translated into a physical work: a sculptural pedestal made from cast aluminium and blown-glass bubbles, exhibited as a material interpretation of the ideas developed through the research.

The images shown here are a digital reinterpretation of that work within de Bijenkorf, imagining the sculpture at an architectural scale. The project continues to inform my professional work and ongoing interest in retail architecture and commercial interiors.

CONCEPT STORE BOUTIQUE | 2025

STEEL BUILDING | 2026

STEEL CONSTRUCTION

During my BA thesis, which focused on retail architecture, I learned that in primal times people are attracted to the reflection of water, therefore reflective, shiny or polished surfaces have an appealing effect on us. I therefore chose my cladding and decorative columns to be slightly polished to attract the human eye. Continuing this play between heavy, light, and shinny. I examined architectural works with these characteristics. I have come to a design where the cladding represents the heaviness as solid sheets, following the transition from HEA column, to liner tray boxes, to insulation, cavity, omega profile, and cladding lastly.

I wanted to maintain a ‘raw steel look’ and therefore left the structural HEA beams and columns uncovered from both inside and the outside, highlighting the skeletal body of the building. The given building seemed quite bulky, yet I did not want to change the given dimensions much, so the cladding has vertical lines to emphasise the tallness.

The outside, almost like a ‘scaffolding’ structure, was constructed by extruding steel beams, thus creating many cold bridges, which would carry Isokorf in between. These extrusions connect to the decorative columns that are non load bearing. Both outside columns and beam extrusions hold perforated steel sheets. The thinness of these structures create the airyness and steel elegance.