Yemail Arquitectura Turns an 80 m² Medellín Mall Unit into a Chocolate Shop Under a Painted Vault

Retail interiors inside shopping centres usually lose to their surroundings. The corridor lighting is generic, the units are interchangeable, and the brand has to shout over all of it. Yemail Arquitectura, working with Grupo ImasD, took a different approach with EVOK Store, the first shop for a Nutresa brand that sells snacks and chocolates made with herbs, spices and fruits. Completed in 2016 inside the El Tesoro shopping centre in Medellín, Colombia, the 80 m² unit does not try to be louder than the mall. It tries to be slower.

The architects titled the project "Amplificar los recorridos," or "Amplifying the Journey," and that phrase is the brief in miniature. A small, deep plan is turned into a route with three stops, wrapped in a single envelope of ochre concrete and lined with dark zapán joinery. What interests us is how much sequence the team extracts from so little floor area, and how a painted vault turns a mall box into something closer to a pantry, a chapel or a market hall.

A Threshold Pulled Back from the Mall

The shopfront is recessed, which creates a small reception niche before you are technically inside. In a mall, that setback matters. It gives the passerby a pause, a pocket of warmer light and a timber frame that reads as a doorway rather than an open retail mouth.

Comparing the built entrance with the rendered elevation shows how closely the final shop follows the design intent: the hand-lettered sign, the glazed display and the solid timber surround all made it through. Few small commercial fit-outs keep their concept this intact.

The Vault as Narrative Ceiling

The defining move overhead is a vault, painted with garlands of citrus, grapes, leaves and flowers. It takes the products' ingredients and lifts them onto the ceiling, so the shop explains itself before you read a single label. The curve also compresses the long, narrow plan visually, drawing your eye toward the back wall instead of leaving you in a flat-ceilinged box.

Floors, walls and roof are cast and plastered in ochre concrete, so the surfaces read as one continuous volume. That continuity is what lets the mural work. Against a fragmented ceiling grid it would look like decoration; against a seamless shell it feels like part of the building. Brass track lighting runs along the vault without interrupting it, a sensible decision given how much the ceiling carries.

Three Tables, Three Stations

Down the centre, three work benches set out the route: seasonal products first, then a tasting table, then a chocolate bar. This is the "journey" in practical terms. Rather than a single counter with everything stacked behind it, the shop spreads the brand across a sequence, and each station asks you to stop, look and taste.

The tasting table, with its stools and dispenser, is the most important of the three. It converts browsing into sitting, which in an 80 m² unit is a bold use of space. It also suits a brand built around well-being, vitality and tranquility; you cannot sell tranquility at a sprint.

Perimeter Cabinetry at Varying Heights

Along the side walls, furniture units alternate display cases, shelving, storage and showcases at different heights and proportions. The variation prevents the long walls from becoming a monotonous shelf run, and it lets products, plants and fruit sit at different levels of attention.

The general furniture is lightly brushed zapán, a dark wood that contrasts strongly with the ochre shell. The white lidded canisters lined up behind glass work almost like specimen jars, which reinforces the apothecary reading that runs through the whole interior.

Joinery and Bronze at the Back Wall

The side units end at a double-height shelving wall that does three jobs: it is the backdrop to the checkout, it carries the brand wordmark, and it screens the storage rooms and staff services behind. A rolling ladder makes the upper shelves usable and doubles as a theatrical element, the kind of detail that suggests a long-established grocer rather than a new brand.

Up close, the furniture relies on traditional joinery and cabinetmaking connections, with bronze hardware. The latch in the close-up is a small thing, but it is where the project's claim to craft is either proven or exposed. Here it holds up, and it matches the team's stated aim of engaging the senses through the feel of materials as much as through light and scent.

Testing the Atmosphere Before Building It

The design renders show that the vault, the botanical mural and the central tasting table were central to the concept from the start, not added later. Placing figures at the threshold and at the tasting table suggests the team was designing for dwell time and for the view from the corridor in equal measure.

Plans and Drawings

The floor plan shows how disciplined the layout is: entrance at one end, perimeter displays on both long sides, three tables down the spine, and kitchen, storage and office tucked behind the back wall. The furniture drawings for the chocolate counter, tasting table, display table and shelving wall show that the joinery was treated as architecture, drawn and dimensioned with the same care as the room itself.

Why This Project Matters

EVOK Store argues that a mall unit can have a plot. By organising 80 m² as a sequence of stations under a continuous shell, Yemail Arquitectura and Grupo ImasD give a young brand a spatial identity that does not depend on screens, oversized graphics or constant refits. The architecture does the storytelling: ingredients on the ceiling, product in the joinery, tasting at the centre.

It also shows that a stated respect for constructive tradition can carry through into a commercial interior. Plastered concrete, solid timber, traditional joints and bronze fittings are not the cheapest route for a retail fit-out, but they age better than laminate. For designers working on small branded spaces, the lesson is clear: commit to one envelope, invest in the furniture, and let the route do the selling.

EVOK Store by Yemail Arquitectura (Antonio Yemail, Luiz Pataro, Érica Martínez) with Grupo ImasD, El Tesoro shopping centre, Medellín, Colombia. Area: 80 m². Completed 2016. Photography by Alejandro Arango Escobar.

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