On June 7, Red Star Macalline, Matrix, and Dark Shell Technology reached a business strategic cooperation at the Matrix headquarters in Shenzhen, and jointly announced that the first batch of M+ material library joint projects will be launched at Red Star Macalline Guizhou Global Home Store No. 1 and Henan Zhongyuan Global Home Store No. 1.
This marks that the core layout of the “Material Library” in the “30 + 10 + 1” business strategy of the M+ Design Center released by Red Star Macalline at the end of March this year has entered the substantive construction stage from planning.
M+ Material Library is positioned as a “material selection think tank” and “supply chain hub” for designers, aiming to solve the long-standing “three difficulties” dilemma in the home decoration industry.
Consumers suffer from a trust gap between renderings and delivery, designers suffer from lengthy material selection links and difficult quality control, and new materials and good products suffer from the high cost of entering omni-channels and difficulty in reaching end users.
Zhu Jiagui, executive president of Red Star Macalline Home Furnishing Group, said, “The market does not lack good products, but it lacks efficient channels for good products to be seen by designers and selected by customers. The M+ material library is to open up this efficient channel – allowing designers to select materials in one stop, allowing brands to access them at low cost, and allowing brands to access materials at a low cost.”
Consumers have a touchable, perceptible, and practical consumption experience.”
According to reports, the two material library models have planned areas of 700 square meters and 360 square meters respectively, with five functional areas including material display, digital material selection, salon activities, shared office, and product selection and leisure.
Among them, in the material display area, all types of materials such as stone, metal, wood veneer, leather cloth, paint, glass, and rock slabs are displayed according to style. Designers and consumers can touch it with their own hands and make on-site samples; in the digital material selection area, scan the code through the mini program to generate a material board, and use the dark shell AI system to preview the space matching effect with one click, realizing “what you see is what you get.”
The material library implements a dynamic replacement mechanism to continuously optimize categories and keep in line with market demand, helping high-quality materials gain more design opportunities.
Jiang Xue, director of the Matrix Research Institute, said, “Guiyang and Zhengzhou both have active designer groups, strong material consumption demand and a large number of inventory update opportunities. The material library aggregates fragmented materials so that designers can easily see and select them. At the same time, it has become
As a display and testing ground for long-tail, personalized, and niche materials, brands can enter the market in a lightweight manner, verify the market response, and then decide to roll it out nationwide.”
What supports the M+ material library from concept to implementation is the deep synergy and complementary advantages of the three parties of Red Star Macalline, Matrix, and Dark Shell Technology.
Red Star Macalline has deployed more than 300 home malls in more than 200 cities across the country, building a “3+ star ecology” covering home appliances, home furnishings, and home decoration design.
As of the end of May, the M+ Design Center has built more than 700,000 square meters of physical space, housed more than 1,800 design studios, and registered nearly 8,500 outstanding designers.
Red Star Macalline provides scene experience, customer base and full-link operation empowerment for the material library.
Zhu Jiagui pointed out: “The M+ material library is a key step for Macalline to shift from ‘store operations’ to ‘ecological services’. We are not just providing a display space, but building a complete link from design inspiration to material implementation.”
Wang Guan, founder of Matrix
Emphasis: “If designers don’t have materials, there is no way to start. They should have materials and budget first, and then do space design.” Matrix Zongheng opened up its internal product selection capabilities and supply chain resources to the outside world, providing professional product selection endorsements and continuously updated material libraries for the material library.
As a spatial intelligent design agent and industrial ecological platform focusing on the field of human settlements, Dark Shell Technology relies on millions of professional private data assets in the industry to self-develop multiple industry-specific large models, and has the dual leading advantages of “technology + aesthetics”.
At present, Dark Shell AI has more than 200,000 designers and home furnishing practitioners, more than 100 leading enterprise partners, more than 1,300 home furnishing brands and art ecological partners, and has accumulated millions of pan-home furnishing commodity resources.
As a “spatial intelligent design agent platform available to everyone”, Dark Shell AI also demonstrates its core capabilities and experience of being “more professional, more accurate and easier to use”.
Huang Yanhong, CEO of Dark Shell Technology, demonstrated how AI can reshape the design and material selection process, “From the floor plan to the decoration intention drawing, it can be completed in 5 minutes. In the past, customers were easily lost after visiting the store for consultation. Now, multiple categories of materials can be inserted into the renderings within 2 minutes, and the owner’s needs can be quickly responded to in 30 seconds.” Dark Shell Technology empowers design with AI and links transactions with design, so that every material in the design plan can be accurately traced and purchased, truly realizing “what you see is what you get.”
In accordance with Red Star Macalline’s “30 + 10 + 1” strategy, the M+ material library will complete the layout of 10 cities in the next three years and gradually become the standard configuration of all M+ design centers.
By then, the material library will form a design material selection network covering the whole country. If the products of brands or suppliers enter any of the libraries, they will have access to the cutting-edge channels of high-end design across the country.
