Responding to a Flurry of Retail Growth: Designing to Address New Consumer and Operational Demands on China’s Retail Sector

By Cho Suzumura, Principal, MulvannyG2 Architecture

 
Here’s a quick testament to China’s growth: Its retail sales grew by 16.6 percent in the first five months of 2011, up from 14.8 percent for all of 2010. (United States-based retail sales for 2010 were 6.7 percent.)

But China’s continuing economic flurry also masks certain challenges its retail sector faces: the sophistication of Chinese consumers has markedly increased while the size and complexity of retail operations have grown unwieldy. The repercussions of each hold opportunity for architects and designers who recognize this gap between what exists and what could be—and can quickly offer value to this burgeoning market.

Let’s rethink architecture

As spending has escalated, Chinese consumers’ expectations have also increased, and there’s mounting pressure for China’s somewhat homogenous retail landscape to diversify. The challenge for local retailers, largely those in second- and third-tier cities, will be to ascertain how best to shape the design and development of more cosmopolitan marketplaces—one that focuses on satisfying not only what consumers want but what they desire, all while delivering memorable retail experiences.

The challenge

But what does a marketplace that offers greater differentiation look like? And in terms of a business structure, how can we, as designers, efficiently and effectively approach the two-headed business model—merchandising plus real estate development—to create one healthy retail entity?

Here’s a tangible example: Department store chains have focused on expanding their business throughout China to meet consumer demand and to position themselves as branded retailers against increasing foreign competition. For instance, a large, Beijing-based department store chain is expanding into six or seven different regions every year. The chain has reached a critical mass and now realizes there are limits to the area of the sales floor. As a solution, they’re turning to the shopping center concept to promote balanced, financially healthy shopping environments. But this is a paradigm shift that requires the navigation of new architectural talent, leasing, and operational territory.

As China’s retailers consider their operational strategies and changing marketplace, an important thing to keep in mind is that the key to successful differentiation is to implement a lifestyle merchandising strategy as opposed to a strategy driven by the sale of commodities. The design should define a targeted demographic, based on research and the understanding of what appeals to members of that group, and offer places, experiences, and things that appeal to its identity. This is how the most successful Western retailers stay not only afloat but ahead.

Cho Suzumura’s (Cho.Suzumura@MulvannyG2.com) more than 30 years of experience includes designing specialty stores, department stores, and shopping centers worldwide. Cho’s insight helps clients interpret and adopt retail system paradigms internationally. As a former director at Millennium Development Co. in Japan—owners of SOGO and Seibu department stores—Cho’s specialty is designing to appeal to lifestyle drivers.

Scoring with Sustainability

There’s no denying that sustainability offers not only a winning strategy for environmental protection but for the reduction of operation costs as well. As such, many sports organizations like the NFL and MLB have put their own colors aside in recent years to jump on board with the “green team” and renovate America’s stadiums to feature a variety of technologies for clean energy.

 
Most recently, plans were announced this week for a solar installation at FedExField, home of the Washington Redskins. Design firm DLR Group and NRG Energy will collaborate to install 8,000 panels across 850 spaces in the stadium’s Platinum A1 Parking Lot—which will generate up to two megawatts (MW) of electricity—and about 200 translucent solar panels will be placed on the exterior of the NRG entry plaza at Gate A pedestrian entry ramp. The plaza entrance also will house two sculptures of football players created with thin film solar technology to produce even more energy for the stadium.

Additionally, 10 electric vehicle charging stations from NRG’s eVgo^sm charging network will be added to the grounds and kiosks in parking lot A1 and the NRG entry plaza on the west corner of FedExField will provide fans with information about renewable energy and NRG clean energy solutions. The project will be complete this September in time for the 2011 NFL football season.

 
Also set for a September completion is an energy-saving endeavor which will allow Lincoln Financial Field, home to the Philadelphia Eagles, to become the world’s first sports stadium to fully convert to self-generated renewable energy. Solar Blue will cover the stadium’s façade with 2,500 solar panels, set 80 20-foot wind turbines atop the stadium rim, and operate a 7.6 megawatt onsite dual-fuel cogeneration plant to save an estimated $60 million in energy costs. All of the technologies will be controlled via an executed monitoring and switching technology.

 
The Seattle Seahawks announced in May that they are striving to decrease their carbon footprint, too. Solyndra solar panels will be installed by McKinstry to the roof of Qwest Field. The thin-film, tube-shaped CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, and selenide) solar cells will cover 2½ acres (80 percent) of the stadium. Light reflecting off the stadium’s existing “cool roof”—which serves to reduce heat absorption—should add to the production of electricity as it is captured by the new panels. Qwest Field’s utility costs are expected to shrink by 21 percent. The project expects completion sometime this summer.

 
Solar Blue has also held a relationship with the Boston Red Sox. GroSolar installed a solar thermal system manufactured by Heliodyne Incorporated on the roof of Fenway Park’s fifth floor media level in 2008. Thirty-seven percent of the gas used for heating is offset by the system, avoiding 18 tons of CO2 emissions. (The amount of emissions conserved can be compared to not driving a car for 43,611 miles!) Solar Blue is now considered the official energy conservation partner of the baseball team and Fenway Park.

 
Across the country from the Red Sox lies the first existing ballpark to attain LEED Silver status, San Francisco’s AT&T Park. In 2007, Solar Design Associates was commissioned by the Giants baseball team to install 590 Sharp solar panels to supply energy to Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) customers in the San Francisco area. The stadium’s Diamond Vision scoreboard also is sustainable—it uses 78 percent less energy than the ballpark's original scoreboard.

It’s great to see that sporting venues are picking up the pace on sustainable design, especially since they hold such a prominent spot in the public eye. But it seems that these types of projects still have a long way to go when it comes to transitioning to the greener side of the fence. Why do you think stadiums have been so slow to renovate to decrease their carbon footprint? What can designers do to encourage facility managers and team owners to invest in green design?

--Raysha Armbrustmacher

Bust a Move: Dance with Clients to Make Better Design Decisions

By Eric Cugnart, Principal, MulvannyG2

Remember prom? Even if you didn’t go, you’re familiar with its public aspirations and private angst—pinning the corsage, the excitement of a limo ride, the first dance...all the curiosity of what’s next. Likewise, the first dance between an architect and a new client hovers in the uncertainty of unknown expectations. How do designers discover a client’s brand so they can use space to define, or redefine, it? Just like prom-goers, architects and clients also need to do the proverbial box step before jamming out to classics by Prince.

Let’s Rethink Architecture

The most difficult part of a project is the beginning. It’s when we receive the information that sets the basis for our entire effort. We need to ask very astute questions to shape a decision-making process, listen, and then interpret. It’s a dance that builds trust, which therein builds design, and you don’t want to go stepping on toes.

To illustrate, we’re currently designing the interior of a new corporate office floor, which will serve as the company’s public face (something they don’t have at the moment). It will be where new and existing customers make the transition from their public perception of the company’s brand to a one-on-one relationship with a staff member. It’s also a place where the company will impart its values on employees, encouraging retention and enticing new recruits.

To begin the design process, many questions need to be answered. For example: What sort of experience should guests initially encounter when they come to this floor? The options hold different implications for the company’s brand. So, for instance, when the elevator doors open, would guests and employees see:
A. A person behind a desk?
B. A wall of branding graphics?
C. A view of its downtown location?
D. An amalgam of one of more of these?

Let the Dance Begin

Let’s say the client states a preference for option “A,” a person behind a desk. The scene would be more traditional, setting up the interaction one would expect when coming off an elevator. You approach reception, someone greets you and takes your name, you wait. Is the client after that conventional repartee? Is their preference based on some additional meaning or connotation in this choice?

If “B” is preferred, this would suggest that the company is more high-tech and can provide information on many different platforms. Is this true? What other meaning does that selection hold? Is the client trying to attract a more youthful customer or employee with this choice? That could result, whether intended or not.

And, if “C” is preferred, it may signify that the company is attuned to more traditional expressions of status, or that it’s interested in providing something everyone can appreciate—a great view. The view is a convention of spatial presentation and instantly provides an ice breaker.

Then there’s also “D,” a mixture of all of the above. Example: A branding wall could act as a segue to a reception desk. If the wall is transparent, perhaps made of glass with elements projected upon it, it could serve as a scrim to a fabulous view of downtown behind it.

These decisions are but one example of choices and their meaning. It takes time and perspective to tease out decisions, the implications behind them, and to understand that decisions are not linear. Ultimately, budgets dictate client decisions. In the meantime, trust must be built to discover the secrets behind the decisions a client makes. Then, when budgets dance with desire, the best decisions can be made.

Eric Cugnart (Eric.Cugnart@MulvannyG2.com) is a principal at MulvannyG2 with more than 30 years of design experience. Cugnart has created some of the firm’s most high-profile buildings, including the designs for Portland’s SM-Art Tower and Portland City Storage, as well as work for the LEED-Gold Bellevue Towers, Bellevue, Wash. His work for previous firms includes design for the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, and the campus for Adidas’ Headquarters. (Article originally appeared in the MulvannyG2 Architecture June 2011 newsletter. Published with permission from MulvannyG2 Architecture. www.mulvannyg2.com)

Rethinking Details: How to Stretch Your Hospital Design Budget

 
By Doug Bazuin, senior healthcare researcher for Herman Miller Healthcare

When we design hospital patient rooms, we know that fast-paced medical advances and unpredictable shifts in government policy mean the facilities we design today must survive many changes.  But we need to keep smaller changes in mind too. Over time, these small details can add up to either big savings or big costs for the facility, depending upon the level of consideration we give them in the design process. 

Discussions with more than 550 healthcare professionals reveal that a positive patient experience and good infection prevention are two of the most important patient room design goals and the areas where details most matter. 

Preparing for changes

In designing a comforting patient room, a detail often overlooked is soiled linen. Oftentimes, a beautiful patient room design must utilize a less-than-attractive solution for dirty laundry disposal. One option for such situations is to hide the receptacle behind a door in a cabinet, but this requires extra steps for the caregiver.

The same can happen with exposed gloves and sharps receptacles. For gloves, organizing them by size and or type can help and concealing them in a cabinet also can be a good option. A solution for the institutional sharps container may be to mount it to a tool rail so its location can be changed with minimal disruption to the room.

Hand sanitizer brands and vendors can change frequently, which means new dispensers also tend to be frequently replaced. The cost of repairing the drywall and touching up the paint every time a dispenser is changed typically is not considered in the initial purchasing decision. Similarly, research uncovers that many automatic/touchless paper towel dispensers in patient rooms needed to be removed, due to the surplus noise they generated. Any initial cost savings were eliminated by the cost of needing to change dispensers. 

Asking these questions early on can solve some of these problems before they occur:
• What is the preferred process for handling soiled linen?
• Who empties the hamper and how often?
• Are there any good options for disguising the hamper?
• Can paper towel dispensers be hidden?
• How frequently will towel and soap dispensers be changed?
• How often do the locations or sizes of glove boxes and sharps receptacles have to be changed?
• Would the initial cost of a tool rail mounted on the wall to make changes nondestructive be less than ongoing wall repairs?

Small solutions for greater infection prevention

Despite the uncertainty and frustration associated with infection prevention issues, hospitals demand infection control measures. How a hospital applies infection prevention measures to its patient rooms can have a big impact on design choices.

In our research on hand washing, we focused on the sink and faucet design of the caregiver hand-washing station.

If the primary purpose of the hand-washing station is just that, then temperature control might not be required.  A touchless faucet that automatically mixes hot and cold water to achieve a selected temperature may be a good choice. But surprisingly, concerns about overly sensitive sensors have trumped the infection control advantages of not having dirty hands touch the handle. New technologies to improve sensor performance continue to deliver better results.

If the care process requires hot water drawn from this faucet for giving bed baths rather than the bathroom sink, the water temperature needs to be controlled with foot pedals or wrist blade handles. Foot pedals allow for independent operation of hot and cold water and are touchless, but they can be difficult to clean.

Here are some infection control questions to be asked when designing a patient room:
• Have you sufficiently engaged your infection prevention professional in the design of details?
• Does your infection prevention professional require the soiled linen hamper to have a lid?
• Which works best for how you need the faucet to operate—wrist blade handles, foot pedals, or sensors?
• Will the automatic sensing faucet operate on batteries, power, or emergency power? And if you choose a battery-operated faucet, has a preventive maintenance plan been put in place?
• Do the size, shape, location, and operation of the sink and faucet help prevent the spread of infection?

In the end, it always pays to sweat the small stuff. What other small details in healthcare design do you feel can help hospitals and other medical facilities keep up with changes?

Doug Bazuin is a senior healthcare researcher for Herman Miller Healthcare. He possesses 10 years of new product development experience and has been involved with several new product launches.

Smart Growth and New Urbanism Emphasized at a Green Drinks Networking Event

The Illinois Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) partnered with the Foresight Sustainable Business Alliance to promote sustainable communities at a Green Drinks networking event, hosted last week at the Haworth showroom during NeoCon® 2011. Doug Farr, author of “Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature” (John Wiley & Sons) and Chicago architect Jim Loewenberg urged attendees at the event to consider approaches to deploying scalable sustainability strategies, including district infrastructural systems, for urban environments.

By focusing on sustainable strategies with reasonable paybacks, they argued that green advocates and developers alike might work together to push past the policy and monopolistic utility practices that form barriers for business-minded developers to creating sustainable communities.

Farr chaired the LEED Neighborhood Development Core Committee that wrote the LEED-ND Standard, which was launched last year. The effort involved collaboration between the USGBC, the National Resources Defense Council and the Chicago-based Congress for New Urbanism. “It was their fist collaboration and brought together a very broad base of expertise on smart growth and new urbanism,” says Doug Widener, executive director of the USGBC Illinois Chapter.

-- Jean Nayar

Designing for Digital Retail Engagement: Thirteen Tried-and-True Technologies

These 13 tried-and-true technologies, compiled by our sister publication DDI, are changing the game for the in-store experience:

 
At a busy train station in Tokyo, drinks supplier JR East Water launched the aCure touchscreen vending machine, which uses an embedded camera and face-recognition technology to determine the age and gender of each user, and recommend soft drinks based on his or her profile. This concept could be easily adapted for use in-store, offering product suggestions within a supermarket or even a fashion boutique.

 
U.S. fashion brand WE has introduced a Twitter Mirror within dressing rooms, enabling patrons to take a photo of themselves modeling a garment and upload it to Twitter. Meanwhile, a touchscreen scanner displays information about the in-store and online availability of different sizes and colors, while an additional screen can be used to browse WE's e-commerce site, make purchases and arrange home delivery. (Credit: Photo courtesy of RVDA)

 
In Spain, Diesel is using interactive installations in its dressing rooms, where shoppers can log onto their Facebook account through a Facebook Connect app and publish images of themselves trying on new outfits. These can then, of course, be commented on by friends.

 
At its Inspirience Centre in The Netherlands, domestic appliance brand Miele gives its visitors use of an iPod Touch to help them navigate the space. Customers register online in advance to make an appointment with a product advisor. In the Inspirience Centre, a GPS-enabled iPod Touch—preprogrammed to the user’s requirements—guides them around the store to items of interest and automatically triggers relevant products to appear on high-definition screens. It also causes their preferred scents and sounds to be emitted as they enter a new zone. The system also provides valuable shopper information by monitoring visitor routes, hotpots and dwell time.

 
Aiming to provide some distraction for young minds is the dual-screen billboard by Ford in the United Kingdom. The billboard had one screen for adults, which played an interactive video of a new car model, and a lower-placed one that provided puzzles and games for children. In total, 11 screens were installed at airports and retail centers nationwide, each generating more than 20,000 interactions over a two-week period.

 
Adding vitality to a somewhat ordinary product, home fragrance brand Ambi Pur installed interactive demo booths at retail centers across Spain to promote its new 3volution range. Customers could hold one of the products in front of the screen to trigger an augmented reality (AR) visual depicting scenes related to the fragrance, which was accompanied by scents emitted from the booth.

>> View the rest at DDI

What is your take on incorporating technology into retail design? Is it the way of the future, or a shortcut to real customer engagement? Share your thoughts with us below in the comments.

Plug and Play: The New Scalable Strategy that Rocks Retail

By MulvannyG2 Architecture

During the month of April, design firm MulvannyG2 hosted a museum-quality exhibit on a 1960s Japanese urban planning movement called “Metabolism.” The idea behind Metabolism—that development should grow in an organic way that expands and contracts according to changing demand—made us revisit an idea of our own: How can we take the mobile nature of one highly successful retail approach, Portland’s downtown food cart scene, and apply it to other fixed retail typologies that aren’t on wheels, such as big boxes or retail centers? How can we make architecture “move,” and what are the benefits to that?

 
Let’s Rethink Architecture
Portland, Ore., has a food cart scene unlike any in the country. It’s huge, organized, and each ‘pod’—as opposed to "taco truck"—resides in a specific site within this unique community. Eating there made us not only think about mobility but about the relationship between mobile elements and fixed elements in retail architecture. It occurred to us that today’s retail building programs stress building permanence when retail brands actually should shine as the established presence, with architecture working—and changing as needed—to support that.

But to create a building program that more flexibly communicates both retail brands and trends, we need a radical shift: Instead of permanence, what if adaptability were the driving force behind the design and construction of stores or points of purchase? A means to that end: Introduce prefabricated components to large format—and other—retail typologies.

How could this actually work? One example: Let's use prefab’s flexibility to significantly improve efficiency and brand messaging opportunities while reducing the costs of store remodels. Why? Today, designers help retailers manage a five-to-10-year building remodel cycle, and each remodel’s bill includes not only the cost of construction, but the loss of revenues when all or some of the store is shuttered during construction.

How could prefab reduce those costs? Separate the individual functions of the big box—pharmacy, grocery, fashion, deli—and design prefabricated, branded components for each that could then be plugged into the box as the remodel progresses or while a brand new store is being built. While this prefab method certainly would speed up construction, we also realized that it opens up other new and exciting possibilities, with more benefits that actually turn the large format experience into a scalable one. Here, we’ll explain more:

A. More than a sum of parts. Aside from this strategy to reduce remodeling costs and keep stores operational, what if each component could exist on its own—located on a corner or as a mobile cart—and then migrate to join other components to collectively repopulate the “parent” big box store as needed? Each component would be a branded structure and designed to correspond to, elevate, and spread
the retailer’s brand.

B. Portable events. What if we considered each component as not just discrete departments within the store but as opportunities for events, based on location or season? Example: How about a Thanksgiving component that pops up in November at farmers’ markets, in neighborhoods, selling turkeys, serving items or decor? Or think of a dorm room decorating component, located on college campuses in late August as students move in, stocked with goods or taking orders for delivery from the parent store’s distribution center.

C. Components secede! As another alternative, what if a component did not plug back into a mother ship or a big box store but existed simply as a specialty store extension of a big box brand?

D. Test market opportunity. What if these components were considered as a means to introduce a brand new market, to test the water? It offers a lower threshold of risk: Instead of creating an 180,000-sq.-ft. store and experimenting with that, first establish a component in a new market and tweak from there.

E. Extending the points of purchase (POP). What if we took this even further and branded elements of the retail distribution channel that are, at this point in time, not branded? Example: Trucks deliver retail goods to stores across the country, loaded into the store on pallets. What if the truck were branded? What if the trailer lowered to ground level and unfolded into a branded experience? What if the truck stopped en route to the store, had an “event,” and sold a certain amount of goods from the truck as a discounted rate? This would require the truck to be designed as a branded point of purchase. What new relationships between retailers and channel partners would this create? What new branding opportunities?

 
These ideas present opportunities to extend the retail relationship with the consumer and to market in new, advantageous ways. New points of purchase along the distribution channel offer a glimpse at the means of production, which is exciting to Gen X and GenY consumers, like us. Pop-up events leverage sales opportunities and bring the brand and its products to consumers in a redefinition of convenience, something attractive to all markets. And, as we originally conceived of this idea, it’s a way for stores to implement prefabrication to make both remodels and ground-ups less expensive, faster, and more conducive to retail experimentation.

 --Courtesy of MulvannyG2 Architecture

Eco-Pursuits: A&D Celebrates Earth Day

Everyone has nature on the brain this time of year. Whether it’s because the “April showers bring May flowers” adage is ringing in our ears or just because people have finally had enough of winter’s doldrum weather, Earth Day always seems to crop up in the nick of time (right before we all go crazy from cabin fever!).

As usual, the A&D industry has hopped on board with the Earth Day celebrations, and many manufacturers have stepped above and beyond to showcase their eco-pursuits. Here are some of the nature-focused initiative highlights crossing Contract editors’ news desks on April 22:

 
* Bulbrite introduced its "Bulbs Out, Bulbs In" environmental campaign, turning all light bulbs out for an hour inside and getting outside to plant flower bulbs around the perimeter of the company's headquarters in Moonachie, NJ.  This program serves as a reminder of Bulbrite's commitment to sustainability and preserving the environment for generations to come.

* Centiva offered throughout the month of April a new suite of dynamic Green Week events in its headquarters hometown of Florence, AL. Events included: a Green Week kick-off day with guest speaker Ben Maharrey from Florence Utilities presenting a discussion on the ability of purchasing green power credits, solar power opportunities, and power conservation with employees; a Clean and Green day where Centiva employees volunteered their time to the city, and also to the Centiva-adopted street of Mars Hill Road, by picking up litter; and a “brown bag contest,” where local community elementary school students were given a lesson the meaning of Earth Day asked to draw a picture on a brown grocery bag (donated by a local grocery store) to win a Nintendo DS. (The overall winning design also will be Centiva’s 2012 Earth Day T-shirt design. All brown bags were returned to the local grocery store to be re-used by their clients on Earth Day.) Additionally, Centiva sponsored Shoals Earth Day Fest, which is a community education program and festival to promote environmental awareness and advocacy in the Florence area; planted of over 100 trees; and donated $3,000 to the city to purchase recycle bins, which will be given away to local residents who make a pledge to recycle.

 
* InterfaceFLOR Canada prides itself on being passionate about sustainability and leading by example. (It’s current gutsy corporate mission is to be off oil by 2020!) The manufacturer is commemorating Earth Month by having its employees team with its architect and designer clients for the first-time “Legacy Projects.” Together they will take a half-day off work and use that time to work for a worthy community endeavor. “Legacy Projects” will be taking place throughout Canada in April. (Photo above: Marcel Parent, Marcel Parent designer Manon Morency, InterfaceFLOR Canada, and Andrée-Anne Babeux, Conceptum International)

What other Earth Day celebrations took place? What did your firm/company do to raise eco-awareness this month?

--Stacy Straczynski

Re-Thinking the Center Store Design

Grocery retailers unite! Store perimeters have gotten, well, just pretty dang awesome in recent years. I'm all for the expanded bakery sections (with my bonafide sweet tooth) and adding banks and health services to the store perimeter (Eyeglass fittings at Walmart? Check.), but I'm still looking to our design brethren to make the center store a bit more, well, less monotonous.

While perimeter sales are booming, center-store sales actually have declined on a same-store basis. And I'm not entirely surprised. Let's face it. Center store is kinda boring. How are canned veggies supposed to compete with beautifully illuminated, artfully displayed heads of broccoli and craftily merchandised bunches of carrots? Today's fickle shoppers "get in, get out, and get on" with their lives (thank you Chili's for the appropriate tagline) and the poor center store simply is not growing at the rate of the ever-exciting perimeter. Whatever are grocery retailers to do?

HELPFUL TIP ALERT!! Nielsen (our parent company....Thanks, Dad!) has just unveiled a Webinar that shares strategies and views on how best to leverage in-store innovation to generate more desirable shopper behavior, such as more frequent store visits, larger basket rings, or greater customer loyalty. It's turnign design into dollars, which to me equals "pretty cool" on my rank-o-meter. Take a listen and let us know what you think. What's in store for your clients' center store?

--DDI, sister publication to Contract

(Photo: ©iStockphoto.com/Suprijono Suharjoto)

Video: 'Raise the Roof' for Domestic Manufacturing

Let’s face it: the economy has been pretty quiet the last few years. Isn’t it time for America to start making some noise? As an American manufacturer (and fourth generation, family-owned company), Mannington seems to think so! The flooring company recently launched “Let’s Make Some Noise” campaign—complete with an engaging video—that highlights the importance of domestic manufacturing on our economy and the impact that job creation has on our communities at large.

A spokesperson at Mannington shared with me that response to the video from a February-held council of healthcare designers was quite positive, the professionals stating that “domestic manufacturing is incredibly important when they're choosing which products to specify. In fact, one said that it's as important to her as recycled content!”

Does domestic manufacturing play a key role in your selection of products? Can the A&D community be doing more to keep business within the U.S.?

--Stacy Straczynski