What happens when the mall, is suddenly, more experiencial than your retail store?

The Tokyo, Omotosando Prada retail experience designed by Herzog & de Meuron





I was researching retail store design this weekend at my local high-end mall, and I noticed something. Amongst the faux wearhouses, concrete cubes and other fantastically designed retail stores, there were still rather average experiences, if not poor ones. The best analogy I can throw together is that now that the interior of the Mall is essentially, perfectly designed with birch forests, interesting angles and surprising arcs of glass and space, that some of the retail stores still stuck in the 1990's felt, um...a bit like shoe stores. Laminated wood, chrome, and some even had cash out areas at the door.

But the retail world is changing faster than many of us all thought, and I think, for the good. A recent trip to Tokyo reinforced this while researching Zaha Hadid buildings for retain, for my book Beyond Trend. Simple, think like the firm, Eight.inc.

As these images suggest, when retail design moves beyond the typically inward focus of interior design (something in which most retail stores take part), the results can elegantly (and instantly) raise the brand’s profile and even transform the shopping experience of neighboring stores. Herzog & de Meuron’s exoskeleton Prada store in Tokyo’s high-end shopping district is one of many “one-off” Prada stores designed by noted architects. Instead of developing a one-size-fits-all in-store experience, Prada shrewdly chose to bolster its image by being unique in each location - so long as each store is suitable for its level of luxury. Prada’s Tokyo store plays well against Toyo Ito’s Tod’s store down the street too, which consists of another equally original take on exoskeleton/open floor-plan architecture - this time in the form of poured concrete and seemingly random shards

The Apple’s store experiences are certainly among the most well-executed worldwide. Eight Inc.’s minimalist use of materials, color, and layout are perfectly consistent with the clean, efficient design of most Apple products; similarly, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson’s crystalline Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York City serenely rests in a clearing of monolithic, concrete, behemoths (a fortuitous - or sly - Apple v. Microsoft metaphor).