Completed in 2016, Crystal Houses uses glass bricks, glass window frames, and glass architraves to create a flagship storefront that maintains the architectural character of the area. At the same time, it sits within a broader fascination in the MVRDV oeuvre with the symbolic and social consequences of transparency – also visible in designs such as 133 Wai Yip Street in Hong Kong or the Infinity Kitchen concept. To that end, one of the key inspirations for the Hermès design was a concept image that envisioned Crystal Houses as a fully transparent building, providing a clear view from PC Hooftstraat to the Vondelpark behind. This image provided the inspiration for including a park setting in the story.

Produced by Amsterdam-based Aectual, these elements use upcycled plastic where possible – for example, the upcycled orange plastic of the horse and the bicycle was sourced from the travelling kiosk of Le Monde d’Hermès – and all of the 3D-printed material can be returned to Aectual for recycling again at the end of the shop window’s run.

In many cases, the elements further reference digital drawings with their symbolic hatch patterns, such as the wavy lines signifying clouds or the chaine d’ancre, a classic Hermès motif, that marks the body of the horse. The “layers” of digital drawings were reinterpreted as physical layers – eight of them in total – and the scene fills the majority of the two-storey shopfront, making full use of the building’s transparency.