SHOPS | Various Locations

SUMMARY: Retail Space Design

CLIENT: Various

Retail design tends to be a specialist niche within the construction industry. Shops are usually highly serviced and a lot of detailed design and coordination goes into a relatively small space to ensure a well designed and often deceptively simple aesthetic. As part of our service we liaise with the building landlords to ensure the needs of the retail unit are properly considered and the details agreed. This includes such issues as service connections, incoming telecommunications, fire alarm integration and external plant space.

High end retailers often require the services to be completely out of site with minimal access panels and this in turn leads to innovative solutions to conceal plant and equipment. Typical examples include the integration of grilles and equipment into joinery or lighting features, use of VESDA Fire alarm systems with discreet detectors, installation of maintenance crawl ways above false ceilings and siting plant in back of house areas.

Retail projects are often fast-track with little time to go through the process of design development and obtaining landlord and Building Regulations approvals. Our experience means that we instinctively know the questions to ask of the client and recognise the key design issues to address early to ensure all challenges are identified and solved as early as possible.

We enjoy long term relationships with a number of retail clients and we have developed close and efficient working relationships with their construction teams together with their preferred sub-contractors and suppliers. In this way we have all gained an excellent understanding of our respective roles, the procedures and standards to apply and consequently we all work together very efficiently.

Our experience includes the design of self-contained shop units in various types of buildings and malls such as Westfield, together with the design of retail concessions in large department stores such as Selfridges. Our retail work has taken us all over Europe and we are happy to act as the interface between the local Architects and Engineers and then client.

Photo Credits: KTA Ltd