CONCRETED is a brand that presents distinctive scents inspired by Seoul. Rather than the traditional or glossy image shaped by the media, they focus on the city they live in and love, and on the emotions they experience there.

Prior to the project, we had long conversations with the brand team. To them, fragrance is not merely a product, but a story conveyed through the senses. Their gaze upon Seoul becomes scent, and that scent remains in memory. The space began with their story.


The brand name CONCRETED carries three meanings: concrete as a building material; concrete as a raw material used in perfumery; and the adjectival sense of something “actual” or “tangible.” We felt these three meanings resembled the structure of a perfume itself―the top note, the first impression; the heart note, the core; and the base note, the lingering trace.

“What if CONCRETED were a perfume?”
We imagined the space as a single fragrance, seeking to speak to visitors through the brand’s own language.

The space is located on the third floor of an older building near a subway station. With its tiled façade and an auto repair shop on the ground floor, the building appears far removed from what one might expect of a typical perfume store. For this reason, we sought to introduce an unexpected note in the space’s top note―the first encounter.

The space is divided into two primary areas: a showroom for displaying the fragrances and a studio for the brand’s work. At the center of the showroom, we created a separate booth dedicated to focused scent exploration. Upon entering, visitors are immediately met with a large black box-like volume rising to the ceiling, intended to evoke a sense of the unfamiliar.



The heart note―the essence of a fragrance―was conceived as the brand’s unique way of seeing Seoul. Along the path from the entrance to the booth, a series of elements was arranged to allow this perspective to be experienced: a diagonal slit cut into the booth; a metal frame screening the brand’s film; glimpses of the street through square openings in fabric-covered windows; and products reflected in mirrors embedded within the booth. The initial sense of the unfamiliar gradually shifts, as one approaches the booth, into an encounter with the brand’s way of seeing Seoul.

The black booth, finished in a handmade hanji (traditional Korean mulberry paper) hand-dyed with meok (traditional East Asian black ink), is a space devoted to the fragrances. Openings that appear mirror-like from the outside are trimmed, while light filtering through diagonal slits in the walls and ceiling forms a backdrop that reveals the scents. Here, scent exploration becomes an immersive sensory experience. The fragrances encountered in this space settle into memory, lingering even after one leaves―like a base note.

Through this space, the aim was to articulate the brand’s distinctive perspective and its way of translating that perspective through the medium of scent. The brand’s attention to materials rooted in Korean and East Asian culture and nature―often overlooked within the world of perfumery―is realized here through handmade hanji, dyeing with meok, fabrics traditionally used in hanbok (traditional Korean dress), and birch wood stained in tones reminiscent of graphite.

Through this sensory experience, visitors are invited to carry with them the fragrances shaped by CONCRETED’s gaze upon Seoul―held as memories of their own.