In Guimarães, Portugal, medieval architecture dots the rolling hills of the northern city. It’s here where the country’s first king, Afonso Henriques, was born in the city’s titular castle, a foundational fortress, built in the 10th century, that encapsulates the origin of the country. It’s this national and architectural history that inspired the design of Store 1G, a clothing and shoe store in Guimarães.

Under the helm of Estudio Além, a Spain-based architecture studio founded by Paula Navarro Mazón and Filipe Nunes Faustino (who led the project), the store merges the medieval ancestry of the surrounding area with a dizzying modern sensibility. The duo set out to achieve two goals. First, to design a visually striking atmosphere that encourages an elevated user-experience, which they achieved with their evocations of the city’s castle. Second, to do so in a way that accentuates the store’s offerings.

The perimeter of the store is continuously lined with electro-welded wire mesh structures made of galvanized steel that abstract and modernize the battlements of the castle. These structures are filled with 23 tons of local granite stone, crushed into particle sizes to line the mesh formations like regal gabions.

Read more on aninteriormag.com.