Remote-Controlled Pop-Up Shop Takes On The Streets Of Tokyo

Tokyo-based designer Duncan Shotton has created the world’s smallest pop-up shop. In Japan’s most densely populated city, the British designer has come up with a novel solution to the metropolis’s limited space in its busy retail streets.

The shop, which measures just a few inches tall and can be held in your hand, is built upon a tiny remote-controlled car which zooms around the city. Its swift mobility ensures that it can be noticed wherever it is, despite its simple design and its busy surroundings.

The shop itself was created to promote Shotton’s tiny push-pins, designed to look like little Pinocchio figures, which stick into the cork-board at the back of the shop. Having sold 900, Shotton created the pop-up shop to promote the last 100 limited edition pins, each shop being able to house one pin as it zips around the city. Shotton says that “to build upon their uniqueness, and small size, I wanted to build a tiny shop that held and displayed only a single pack of pins.”

The idea is as much as statement as it is functional, however. In a city which is ever-growing upwards with new skyscrapers being built around the clock, Shotton decided to take things back to the ground and turn people’s heads to the floor. Shotton released the tiny shop into the streets of Harajuku, one of Japan’s most lucrative and densely-populated shopping areas. By directly taking on some of Japan’s biggest shops and brands from its minuscule position, Shotton’s pop-up shop uses its mobility to combat the static nature of the high street retail.

Shotton’s previous work includes a pop-up shop in a tree, which he pioneered in the same streets of Tokyo last year. He says that his aim is to “create products that engage users emotionally, promote happiness and ensure people love what they are doing, wherever they are and whoever they’re there with.”