During our small tour of Asia we’ve recently been able to spend a few days back in Bangkok, giving me the chance to drag my other half around some of the many shopping centres I was recommended to visit.

We visited 5 in total, The Silom Complex, Paragon, Terminal 21, Central World and lastly Siam Center, which I have reserved for a separate post as it really blew me away.

The previous four centres all demonstrated different design and positioning strategies, but each of them followed the usual principles for shopping centre design that we would practice in the UK. They each had a fair share of theming, brand identity, contrast, moments of interest and high levels of commercialisation.

They are all designed not only for their local demographics but for a large footfall of global tourists. The Siam Center infact seemed to be the one centre that wasn’t designed primarily for tourists.

Each of the four centres are several stories high, bigger than UK centres such as Westfield Stratford that I have previously commented as being stacked too high. Terminal 21 shopping centre in-fact has 7 floors and resembles that of a theme park more than a shopping centre.

That leads me on to theming, Terminal 21 in particular is heavily themed. But downtown Bangkok where Paragon, Central World, Siam Center and MBK are located reminded me of Vegas or Disney Land in terms of its scale and theme with lighting, video, movement and sound everywhere. Inside and out all of the shopping centres and the links between each, is sensory overload. There is a lot to take in!!

Each floor of Terminal 21 is themed as a major city around the World. Head up the escalator to find malls decked out like Parisian streets with columns wrapped in typical deco style iron cladding. Go up another level and you’re in Tokyo, bright lights, pop-art colours and graphics can be found on columns, in the toilets and on floors and walls in malls.

Head up to the top floor and you’re in San Francisco with a mock Golden Gate Bridge spanning the void between mall walkways. It’s quite over the top of course, but you cant take it too seriously as it works in a city like Bangkok where they are trying to appeal to so many different cultures and countries visiting, but also a local community that is so intrigued by other Cities around the world.

The other three malls aren’t as ‘out there’ as Terminal 21 but are massive all the same. Paragon is positioned at the high end market containing brands like Gucci, Dior and so on. The shopping centre is the biggest in South East Asia. The malls themselves are rather neutral, with of course the use of quality materials, marble floors and strong lighting in malls and in coffered ceilings.

Silom Complex is smaller but demonstrated some nice details and use of warmer materials in ceilings which was different.

Have a whizz through the endless iPhone pics I’ve snapped. Whilst some malls are nothing new in terms of design and are just bigger, there are some pockets of inspiration to be found.

    

The second store from the Camper Together campaign that caught my eye is in Milan, again in collaboration with Jamie Hayon. The store features more of what is becoming further apparent as the Hayon signature style.

Handmade tables with theatrically shaped turned legs, comically themed furniture and the use of gloss materials on floors and oversized lamp shades each play their part in forming a fantastically playful theme for the store.

Illustrations in black vinyl on the shop front glass below a reflective black fascia, sit against red walls and red furniture to create a rather menacing but intriguing exterior.

Camper constantly play with scale in their stores, and in collaboration with Hayon they execute it cleverly again, with huge red lamp shades sitting over circular love seats along with the equally large gold lamp shades above product tables creating great retail theatre.

So you have probably read about the Silence Room snuck away within Selfridges London store. An insulated ‘inner-sanctum’ reminiscent of a padded cell to hide customers away from the noise and madness of the fast paced department store. The idea was originally conceived by the founder of Selfridges, Harry Gordon Selfridge, the purpose back then the same as it is now; enabling customers to ‘retire from the whirl of bargains and the build up of energy’.

The silence room as it appears now follows the same principles as originally intended, but the rules have to allow for a totally different ball game. Mr Selfridge did not have smart phones, ipods and other noise polluting devices to contend with back in 1909 when he originally instated the silence room. Plus the room now is not actually a completely silent haven from the rest of the store. It is next to a major walkway, by two lifts and adjacent to a cafe, noise can still quite definitely be heard from the main store.

People are instructed to remove their shoes and switch off mobile devices. Once inside you are ushered up a dark corridor lit only by light bulbs in each corner to guide them through a gap in the wall to the main room, covered in cream felt on the walls, floor and seat pads on top of a simple oak veneer bench. The felt acts as an insulating tool, dampening sound. The ceiling services remain exposed and sprayed black. The architect explains that this is in order to remind customers of the nature of the building and to keep the visual noise – similar to the back ground noise.

Rather clever that they intended for the silence room to actually not be silent, and fortunate the scheme required the ceiling services to be exposed so that it could be a poignant visual reminder of the fast paced store outside, negating the need for a new ceiling to be dropped in at more expense with no doubt tricky M&E and sprinkler reconfiguration works. Clever these architects aren’t they.

Jokes aside, the room looks cool and calming and is actually part of a much larger ‘No Noise Campaign’ the retailer is rolling out across their stores in the UK. The manifesto for the campaign reads as such;

“As we become increasingly bombarded with information and stimulation, the world is becoming a noisier place. In an initiative that goes beyond retail, we invite you to celebrate the power of quiet, see the beauty in function and find calm among the crowds”

Selfridges have introduced several interesting elements to help us celebrate No Noise, along with the Silence Room there is a Quiet Shop, in which some of the brands involved have taken a bold, yet attention catching step of debranding their products. Heinz baked beans and ketchup, Marmite, Levi jeans and Dre Beats headphones are just a few brands that have removed their logo from products in to create a no doubt limited edition line of collectors items.

There are a variety of talks and performances from orchestras (one assumes making noise?!) but the eye catcher for me are the Headspace Pods. Customers are invited to enter the pod to experience guided meditation ‘to help calm busy heads’ at different points throughout the store, advising us on how to deal with the commute to Selfridges, how to deal with the masses of people all converging on the escalators and various halls on arrival to the store, and how to deal with technology. Headspace advises on how to filter some of the noise from our technical devices and digital chatter.

Ultimately the No Noise campaign seems to be encouraging us to step away from our mobile devices which is nice to create some publicity and drive footfall to your store which it is no doubt doing, but it is not going to change the way we as customers shop with the aid of our smart phones.

The Headspace Pods could possibly have legs though. They could be a nice edition in a shopping centre to slow people down, increase dwell time, allow people to recharge in order to spend more money whilst feeling like they are part of a shopping experience given to them directly by the shopping centre as apposed to a brand and thus encouraging them to return.

Camper is a brand that I am constantly talking about, for my love of its continued creativity in its store design. I love the fact that brand principles are consistent in each store but that there is a new twist in each, each store has its own memorable identity. It’s not about standard roll-out.

Camper Together is a Model of Collaboration as the brand puts it. Their take on it is as follows; ”Camper Together is a model of collaboration between Camper and leading designers to create exclusive products and outstanding stores. Together responds to a new international reality that requires the capacity to integrate through design, different cultures and creative know-how into a single project together with and organization capable of communicating and distributing unique initiatives to a select global marketplace.”

The two stand out collaborations for me are with Spanish artist and designer, Jamie Hayon. His main creative studio in Valencia is where he develops his unique style focusing on blurring the lines between art, decoration and design bringing back a renaissance in finely-crafted, intricate objects within the context of contemporary design culture: creating furniture, product, interiors, sculptures and art Installations.

The first of a two part feature with Camper that I want to look at is the store he designed in Tokyo. It is inspired by classic Circus elements. It is straight out of a fictional film like Willy Wonka where intrigue is created by experimentation with scale, the use of fun items such as candy shaped door handles and curves to every wall and, table and surface.

The space features elegance and contrast with injections of classic Camper elements. The long feature table through the centre of the store has elegant turned legs underneath a warming bronze mirror ceiling feature with chrome pendant lamp shades. Lamps over feature tables is something Camper does a lot. The merchandising on this table is again completetely in the style you would expect from the brand. Pairs of shoes are given plenty of space from one another as if you are experiencing an exhibition space.

The store is finished with elements that sit typically within the Tokyo market, the candy door handles, graphic illustration to the window at the front of the store along with the use of tiles to the exterior of the store and on the interior walls are all typical of a careful balance of playful, precise and at times sterile/clinical design that is seen a lot in Tokyo retail stores. Camper and Jamie Hayon do well to put their own stamp on it.

Harmonic Convergance is an interactive sound and light installation created by American sound architect Christopher Janney at Miami Airport. The installation enhances the journey of passengers travelling from a car rental terminal to the main airport through a combination of light, colour and sound.

A ‘sonic portrait’ is created through speakers installed at intervals along the walkway that play sounds of tropical birds, thunderstorms and a variety of environmental noises relative to South Florida. Video sensors at either end of the walkway track movement and density of passengers moving through the space causing the composition of the sound environment to change as a response.

This is what excites me about the installation, the interaction and response to people in the space. Pairing the use of colour through vinyls on the window creating reflections on the floors and walls with sound creates a sensory experience. I would be interested to know how it influences passengers when they arrive at the airport terminal. Does it do more than make the journey pleasant? Does it influence them to use the departure hall in a certain way? Could it be used to encourage them to shop or spend more time in the retail area of the departure lounge?

At my agency we focus a lot on what we call sensory experiences when designing retail stores and shopping centre environments. It is simply not enough to design something that looks cool, or is styled like the brand or the customers that shop the brand. Retail and interior design needs to be more engaging through sensory experiences such as soundscapes alongside visual design to influence and encourage customers to shop or enjoy the space.

Whilst this installation may be no more than a clever piece to enhance what certainly looks like a dull area (see bottom picture) it could actually be used for a lot more within other/additional areas of the airport, to influence customer footfalls and spend.

Oh but it does look pretty.

The store consisted of elements of the shop in shop concept, including the recognisable argyle wallpaper and use of rosewood. We used the same midfloor units with rosewood bases and chrome rails which worked well against the concrete floor adding warmth to the area. We also introduced feature walls with shelving, all in rosewood and large scale vinyls of the famous penguin logo.

Rosewood, argyle wallpaper and sourced furniture are used throughout. A bar and seating area in the middle of the stand created an informal, comfortable theme to the unit whilst allowing the guest to view the surrounding product

I recently stumbled upon this beautifully designed store by Melbourne based March Studio for Damir Doma in Paris. The brief was to follow a theme of multi layered ‘rough and refined’ as well as ‘rawness and purity’ which was the inspiration for Doma’s  fashion design at the time. Doma commissioned March Studio to design the boutique store after visiting the Paris store they designed for Aesop that made them internationally recognisable.

An old and new contrast soon fell in to place meeting the criteria set out by Doma and allowing for the site to retain its layers of history. Doma wanted customers to feel like they were in his Parisian apartment. The staircase is a focal point for the store, March Studio used marble in its purest form, slabs stacked on top of one another, adding to the multilayered feel of the store. Cleverly merchandised on each tread of the wide portion of staircase and framed with a sheet of blackened steel it certainly adds plenty of drama to the space whilst contrasting sharply against the remaining natural materials and colour palette.

The mirrored ceiling however is the highlight for me, installed as a device to counter a low ceiling height on the first floor, it contains brass accents and raw steel whilst it is treated with chemicals to give the appearance of ageing. The diamond shaped mirrors project the clothing back on to the space itself distorting shapes and creating a textural illusion of more room downstairs. Mirrors are in-fact used throughout the space to project a feeling of spaciousness in to the store.

There are of course hundreds of store concepts based on the juxtaposition of raw and contemporary materials, or ‘modern industrial’ but this one has a level of detail with clean lines and high quality materials set against the unfinished walls that are a back drop to the display of premium product on simple rails that makes it feel own-able and unique and not another retail concept that is about volume display in front of a contrived shop design.

Bold mid floor wardrobes and showcases in powdercoated black steel hold folded and hanging product. Strong branding is used throughout with a large Luke logo stencilled across one wall and the ‘Luke Lion used in the shop front reveals against tile and on the back wall of the cash desk against timber.