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INSIGHTS: A DISCUSSION ABOUT “PUBLIC SPACE” DESIGN
Gaddis Architect specializes in all phases of commercial and commercial retail design, design management and construction. If maximizing the success of your business by optimizing the performance of your store, or commercial space design is a goal, then attending the following “Insights” could provide some very real benefits. Many common, and some not so common, design challenges are analyzed. Solutions aimed at increasing retail traffic, creating visual presence in various environments, and expressing not only a particular shopping experience but also the business’s brand, are presented. We think that all design is, on some level at least, retail design. Please scroll on, start a dialogue, contact us anytime.
Visual opportunity created, then missed.
These storefront designs fight the exterior “visual noise,” which would actually be a lot worse had these photos been taken at noon instead of early evening, by framing their storefronts with bright non-reflective graphics in patterns compatible with their particular brands. Judging by the photos it is an effective solution. The shops clearly stand out of the view as a result. Where they fall apart is about how they have merchandised, or in this case not merchandised, the window once they have the attention of the passerby. It looks like they have created an opportunity and then missed it. They send me searching through my stacks for a picture to be Photoshopped into the window so that I can see the full effect had the job been completed.
Can more $ be charged for the merchandise because the ceiling looks expensive? Maybe!
Elevation/Section Through a Curved Ceiling
If you have the budget a curved ceiling can add sophistication, and polish to a rectangular retail department or room. When used in a small space, perhaps 1000 square feet, the ceiling can be held back from the wall allowing for a cove and creating all manner of design possibilities. The cove frames the room and adds focus to the walls, and the curve, if the ceiling is white or reflective, offers a more subtle option by placing indirect light on merchandise displayed in the center of the room.
Detail of Lighting Hidden in Cove
I worked on the boutique in the drawings above. Capturing the light while hiding the fixtures was a big priority. Not only is the cove perfect for this, but it also has a directional quality which points to the merchandise along the adjacent walls.
The best way to know that this T-shirt shop got it right is to imagine what it would look like without the curved ceiling. One quickly realizes that by softening the environment with warm indirect light reflected off of the colored ceiling, the design is performing as noted above and more. Hard to believe the place is selling tea shirts. They can probably charge more just because the ceiling looks expensive.
Double Vision
I have probably posted these notes about daytime storefronts in the wrong order. This post really should have been first because the images provide a visual definition of the main problem a designer faces when dealing with storefront display options at a time of day when the sun is shinning brightly. That would clearly be the tendency of exterior expanses of glass to produce reflections to the extend that we almost always experience at least a double and often a triple, or more, image. Consideration of the shops in the images below proves to be instructive.
Is this a cafe, a bar, a coffee shop? The only thing we know for sure from the street is that it is open, that there is head in street parking in front, a multistory brick building and more street parking across the street. Maybe they do something with hunting because there is a poster or other image of a deer in the window. The things we actually know about the place are mostly defined by the architecture. Wainscoting and historic columns are often seen in restaurants so we naturally make the connection to food. Further, there is a strange cafe curtain in the window, think bakery, as well as what appears to be printed blackboards, both also, associated with food. Otherwise we are in the dark, or in this case reflected light.
The only element strong enough to be seen in this daytime window are the interior lights. Because the merchandise had been placed so close to the interior glass we do understand that they must be selling some type of magazines or printed material, but the actual images are distorted by the reflected scene and clarity is impossible.