PAPER TOYS, PAPER ART, AND ORIGINAL DESIGN OBJECTS MADE IN CHILE FOR CREATIVES AND FUTURE GENIUSES.
Why We Closed Our MUT Store — and What Comes Next
In short: We closed our physical store at MUT because sales weren’t enough to cover its fixed costs, following a difficult 2025 holiday season and an insufficient recovery in 2026. Proyecto Ensamble is still going: we’re focusing on our online store and finding new ways to connect with you.
On August 9, 2026, Children’s Day in Chile, we closed our store at Mercado Urbano Tobalaba (MUT). It wasn’t an easy decision. After years of traveling to design fairs and building Proyecto Ensamble with our own hands, having a permanent space felt like the natural next step. It was a new chapter, although not quite the one we had imagined. We want to tell you what happened and, above all, why this isn’t goodbye: it’s a transformation.
A difficult climate, and a recovery that came too late
The end-of-year shopping season in 2025 was difficult for us. The economic climate and the fatigue of an election-heavy year made Christmas, a crucial season for many small businesses, more challenging. We began to reactivate the business in early 2026, but we were already facing a significant downturn and couldn’t recover the sales momentum we needed.
Our rent was 10 UF plus common expenses, which placed us among the lower-rent stores at MUT. However, the rental model presented to us was based on estimated monthly sales calculated from expected visitor traffic and the characteristics of each product. The initial projections shared with us were considerably higher than what we eventually experienced. In conversations with other tenants, we heard that the gap between projected and actual sales wasn’t unique to us.
The first year was difficult for the shopping space as well: MUT opened while several units were still vacant, and its visitor flows were still taking shape. For a store like ours, focused on design objects for a niche audience, it takes time for people to discover the work and stop to take a closer look.
We make objects from paper, and we believe in what they can be
Proyecto Ensamble has existed since 2009. All these years, we’ve worked to make room for a kind of object that isn’t always easy to explain from a shop window: pieces you read, fold, assemble, play with, collect, and make part of everyday life.
Within our niche, we’ve built a recognizable identity. At MUT, we welcomed international visitors who were surprised to find such unusual products and encouraged us to feel proud of helping push this kind of design forward in Chile. Those encounters stayed with us. They reminded us that the value of what we make cannot be measured only by how many units sell in a month.
We develop paper toy series with artists from around the world, such as Gentleman Cat; research and innovate in tabletop games like Artifacts & Trolls; and create unique, handmade pieces designed as sculptural décor, such as Proyecto Ensamble Cabinet No. 3: Astrum. These projects share a conviction: paper is a noble, expressive, and versatile material. We also believe in Chilean manufacturing, working with a printing company based in Chile.
Gentleman Cat — artist-designed paper toys
Discover Gentleman Cat in our online store →
Artifacts & Trolls — an artist-designed card game
Proyecto Ensamble Cabinet No. 3 — a sculptural paper piece
When a creative project also has to make the numbers work
Our contract included a clause allowing a percentage of sales to be charged once a certain monthly turnover threshold was reached. We never reached that threshold. We understand that a commercial space wants its stores to grow and the overall business to be sustainable for everyone. At the same time, covering fixed costs without reaching the expected sales volume can become very difficult for a small business.
This coincided with changes planned for the Living Project area on level -1 during 2026, where many clothing and textile entrepreneurs were based. The situation made us think more clearly about where we wanted to go and how we could continue developing without relying on a permanent physical store.
In the end, we didn’t manage to recover sales quickly enough to keep the store open. We truly tried: we put in energy, work, and care, but it wasn’t enough to sustain the shop within an ecosystem that demands continuous growth. We also recognize our part in it. After so many years moving from fair to fair, perhaps we became too comfortable with having a fixed space and didn’t move quickly enough to find new ways to present the many things we had already created. We had a broad range of products for different tastes, but there is always room to keep innovating.
The MUT store closed. Proyecto Ensamble didn’t.
The months since we left haven’t been wasted. We’ve been preparing our website and reshaping our social media strategy to bring the store experience online, while still hoping to take part in the occasional major design fair.
We want you to keep discovering the paper objects, games, unique pieces, and curiosities that caught your eye at MUT. And we want you to find those little resin creatures that glow in the dark — the ones that made more than a few people step into the store even when they had never heard of us before.
Little creatures that found a place with you, too
We also can’t forget one of the discoveries loved by people who wandered into our store: tiny 1.5 cm resin miniatures that glow in the dark. Little critters, colors, and unexpected characters that earned a place among the desk curiosities of many visitors.
Discover the 1.5 cm resin miniatures →
For more tiny objects, figures, and unusual finds for your space, explore our Desktop Curiosities collection.
We invite you to visit proyectoensamble.com. The project we’ve been building since 2009 is still here: independent, made with care, and full of ideas yet to come.
A final reflection: Lust and the Knight of Wands
When we asked ourselves whether to tell the story publicly or simply move on without explaining the closure, we did a Thoth Tarot reading. Lust appeared for the option of publishing; the Knight of Wands appeared for saying nothing and moving forward.
Lust, associated with Leo and the element of Fire, invites us to show the project’s vital force without hiding who we are. It isn’t about asking for sympathy or letting a business difficulty define our identity. It’s about speaking honestly about what we experienced and turning that experience into energy for the next chapter.
The Knight of Wands represents the impulse to move ahead without pausing to explain the past. That is a valid path, too: focus on the products, new releases, and what comes next. This time, though, we wanted to pause, tell you our story, thank those who accompanied us, and open the door to a new way of connecting.
We take this reading as a symbolic invitation, not a guarantee: speak with honesty and pride, then turn that feeling into something tangible. A project isn’t defined by a store or an address. It is built by the people who make it and by those who find something of their own in what it creates.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support, the conversations, the visits, and every time you stopped to look at our objects. We’ll be delighted to prepare your orders through our brand-new online store.
Thank you for everything. We love you.
— Paula and Sacha
Proyecto Ensamble
