Bow Your Head to Enter — Slow Time at VILLA tbh, 15 Taojiang Road Shanghai
躬身入门，才能进来 ── 桃江路15号VILLA tbh的慢时光
Shanghai Old Villas Series
No. 1上海老洋房系列 · 其一
There is a door at 15 Taojiang Road that is always closed.
Not because the place isn't open — but because it's meant to be that way. To get inside, you have to circle around the garden wall, make your way through the courtyard, and duck through an entrance that stands no taller than 1.8 metres — the doorway to KARLOS, a ceramics shop tucked inside the building. That small act of bowing says everything about this place: leave the outside world for a moment. The pace is different in here.
This is VILLA tbh, the first physical concept store of tbh (The Beast Home), the homeware brand under the BEAST Family group. It occupies a Republican-era garden villa in Xuhui District — 15 Taojiang Road, Shanghai.
桃江路15号是一座美丽的老洋房，但是进入洋房的门仅有1.8米。
这是刻意而为之，想进来的人，必须绕过围墙，走进花园深处，需要弯腰穿过一扇仅有1.8米高的小门——那是KARLOS瓷器铺的入口。躬身这个动作本身，已经是一种暗示：外面的世界先放一放，从这里开始，节奏不一样。
这里是 VILLA tbh，野兽派集团旗下家居品牌tbh（The Beast Home）的首个线下概念店，落在上海徐汇区一栋民国花园洋房里，地址是桃江路15号。
Three Floors, Three Tempos
The building runs three floors, each with its own purpose and mood, but all sharing the same underlying quality: slowness.
Ground Floor — tbh Room + Wutong Tearoom
The interior ground floor is tbh's homeware display space, built around textiles include heavyweight knit throws, silk pillowcases, fine-spun loungewear. Several independent European homeware labels are also in residence here, including Kühn Keramik, a German handcrafted ceramics brand. Their corner was given a deliberately framed window view, and the garden team planted a small curated landscape just outside it — so the display and the natural world speak to each other.
The Wutong Tearoom sits on the garden side of the ground floor. The menu centres on Chinese tea, served alongside delicate Shanghai-style pastries. The tearoom is semi-open, and from your seat you can look straight through the low window sill into a framed corner of the garden — a small fountain, green branches, and the occasional cat passing through.
Second Floor — Artist Residency
The second floor houses tbh's Artist Residency programme, open to artists and creatives from any field, anywhere in the world. Selected residents are invited to live and work here in Shanghai for one month, exploring freely around three anchoring themes: textiles, nature, and home.
Third Floor — Wutong Workshop
The top floor is used for workshops, exhibitions, and pop-up events, and doubles as a studio for artists in residence. Past programming here has included a recreation of the Parisian workshop of handcraft paper brand ANTOINETTE POISSON (a collaboration built around the shared imagery of the plane tree — Wutong — that lines the streets of both Paris and Shanghai), as well as Mongolian artist Haliyaa setting up a ger in the garden to paint, alongside a felt-making workshop and traditional milk tea.
三层楼，三种时间
整栋洋房共三层，每一层的功能和气质都不同，但共享同一种底色：慢。
一楼：tbh Room + 梧桐茶室
进入室内，一楼是tbh的家居陈列空间，主角是织物——重磅针织毯、真丝枕套、精纺家居服。几个来自欧洲的独立家居品牌也在此驻场，其中包括德国手工陶瓷品牌 Kühn Keramik，陈列区特意开窗借景，窗外是花园艺师专门为这个角落营造的一片微型植物景观。
梧桐茶室在一楼花园一侧。茶单以中国茶为主，配有细巧的海派茶点。茶室本身结构半开放，坐在里面喝茶，视线穿过低矮的窗台，恰好框住花园一角——喷泉、绿植，以及偶尔踱步而来的猫。
二楼：艺术家驻留空间
二楼是tbh的艺术家驻留计划（Artist Residency）所在地。项目面向全球各领域的艺术家和创作者开放，入选者被邀请来上海在此居住并创作一个月，围绕"织物、自然、家"三个主题展开自由探索。
三楼：梧桐工坊
三楼是工作坊、展览和快闪活动的场地，也是驻留艺术家的创作工作室。曾经在这里发生的事情包括：还原巴黎手工纸艺品牌ANTOINETTE POISSON的工坊现场（主题是两国梧桐意象的共创纹样），以及蒙古族艺术家Haliyaa在花园搭蒙古包作画、配合奶茶与羊毛毡工作坊的活动。
"Nurturing a Place," Not "Opening a Store"
tbh uses the word yǎng — to nurture, to raise, to tend — when talking about this space.
The brand's background is worth understanding. tbh was founded in 2018 as an independent label within the BEAST Family group, inheriting the group's deep roots in floristry and emotional storytelling. Like many young brands, it pulled back sharply from physical retail after the pandemic and focused on building its online presence. VILLA tbh is a deliberate reversal of that: not a store opening, but the creation of an experimental ground.
tbh has no department store outposts — and this is intentional. They are not chasing footfall or immediate sales conversion. Instead, they treat their physical presence as a long-term investment: in the slow accumulation of brand character, in genuine relationships with the space and with visitors, in what they call "the value of being present" — something that cannot be measured by an algorithm.
That logic fits this old villa perfectly. A garden villa was never suited to being a mall. It wasn't built for that. It was built to be lived in, gradually, until it develops a life of its own.
"养场"，而非"开店"
tbh对这个空间的定义，用的词是"养"。
品牌的背景值得一提。tbh成立于2018年，诞生于野兽派集团内部，品牌基因来自野兽派多年来在花艺和情感叙事上的深厚积累。和许多新锐品牌一样，疫情之后tbh曾大幅收缩线下，专注线上。而VILLA tbh的诞生，是一次有意识的反向动作：不是开店，是建一个实验场。
tbh没有商场门店——这是刻意的选择。他们不追求高人流和即时转化，而是把线下空间理解为一种长期投资：投资于品牌气质的沉淀，投资于与空间和访客的关系，投资于无法被算法量化的"到场价值"。
这种逻辑，与这栋老洋房本身的气质高度一致。老洋房不适合做商场，也不应该。它适合慢慢养出一种属于自己的生命状态。
A Garden That Took Nearly Ten Years
The courtyard behind the building is a proper private garden, designed and tended by the floral team from The Beast. It is not a set dressing that arrived when tbh moved in. The BEAST Family signed this building nearly a decade ago. From the beginning, the thinking was clear: as a brand rooted in flowers, the garden had to be grown, not installed. The trees planted back then have had years of rain and light. By the time tbh arrived, they were already a small working ecosystem.
The afternoon I visited, I sat in the garden outside the tearoom and had tea. A small fountain trickled nearby. Somewhere along the old villa wall, a cat moved without any hurry at all, unbothered by anyone watching.
一个花园，养了近十年
整个后院是一座规模不小的私家花园，由花艺品牌The Beast的花艺师设计打理。这个花园不是tbh开店时临时布置的。野兽派集团十年前就签下了这栋建筑，彼时有一个清晰的念头：作为以花艺闻名的品牌，这个花园要花时间慢慢养。那些年种下的树，在光与雨的陪伴下悄悄长大，如今已成气候。等tbh入驻时，恰好迎来了一个成熟的生态系统。
我去的那个下午，坐在茶室外的花园里喝茶。花园里有一座小型喷水池，水声细碎。附近的猫咪沿着老洋房外墙悠闲地走壁，不在意任何人的目光。
About the Building Itself
Taojiang Road runs through the heart of what was once the French Concession, threading between Fuxing West Road and Wukang Road. It is one of the quieter stretches in Shanghai’s plane tree district. The villa density is high, but the tourist density is nothing like Wukang Road or Anfu Road. There is still a real neighbourhood here: morning markets, older residents walking dogs, people cycling to work, small shops receding behind layers of greenery.
The villa at No. 15 dates from the Republican era and remains remarkably well preserved. The pebble-finished façade and curved balconies remain strikingly intact, while its roughly 560-square-metre garden is exceptionally rare in central Shanghai.
The entry sequence itself is worth noting. The main gate faces the street and stays closed. There is no welcoming signage. To get in, you have to want to find it whether by following the garden path around or by ducking through that low ceramics shop door. It is an arrival with a small ceremony built in, a transition from the city outside to whatever this place is. It does not accommodate the idle passer-by. But for anyone who walks in with curiosity, it is an uncommonly generous welcome.
关于这栋楼本身
桃江路地处上海法租界腹地，与复兴西路、武康路交织，是上海梧桐区里相对安静的一段。这里的洋房密度高，但游客密度远不及武康路和安福路，保留着更多真实的街区生活气息——早市、遛狗的老人、骑车上班的年轻人，和一间间隐于绿荫的小店。
桃江路15号这栋花园洋房建于民国时期，建筑本体保存完好，外立面的鹅卵石墙与弧形阳台依然清晰。花园占地约560平方米，在上海中心城区实属罕见。
值得一提的是，这里的动线设计本身就藏着一份用意：主入口常年关闭，正面看只是一扇沉默的大门。访客需要主动探索，或沿花园小径迂回，或弯腰走进那扇1.8米高的小门。这种带有仪式感的入口，完成了从外部城市到内部空间的过渡。它不欢迎漫无目的的打卡客，但对带着探索欲走进来的人，是一个非常体贴的开场。
Practical Notes
Address: 15 Taojiang Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai
Hours: Check their Dianping listing or Instagram (@tbh_shanghai) before visiting to confirm opening hours and any current exhibitions.
Suggested visit: Arrive around 3pm. Order a pot of tea at the Wutong Tearoom first, sit in the garden for half an hour, then take your time moving through the interior. Follow their announcements.
Getting there: A short walk from Fuxing Road West metro station (Line 10), or about five minutes by bike from Wukang Road.
实用信息
地址： 上海市徐汇区桃江路15号
开放时间： 建议提前通过其大众点评确认
推荐安排： 下午三点前后到达，在梧桐茶室点一壶茶，先在花园坐半小时，再慢慢逛室内。三楼是否有展览或活动，可关注其公告。
交通： 附近可步行至复兴西路地铁站（10号线），或从武康路骑行约五分钟。
