Harry Allen retail design for UNION

From David Report

The second store by New York designer Harry Allen for prestigious streetwear retailer, UNION, is one part archeological dig and two parts humble masterpiece. Located two doors down from the site of the original UNION store on Spring Street in Manhattan, the new space incorporates some of the elements we developed for its counterpart in LA yet remains true to New York. Harry Allen started by stripping away layers of interior finishes to reveal some original details. He found a window and door that had been covered over, a variety of plaster and brick finished, and the rafters were beautiful. “The demo process in New York is so interesting that we decided to preserve it,” says Harry Allen. The reclaimed details were “ghosted” out by decorative painter Frank Rynan and used as the backdrop for merchandise. The wooden area up front echoes the original store design - it is friendly and familiar. And the back lit, black metal shoe wall at the back of the store becomes a dramatic draw for the eye. The new UNION store is literally a “union” of brand, store environment, and location.

UNION is one of the most respected brands in the streetwear business. Harry Allen is really fond of the whole phenomenon and he has previously designed five stores for the UNION sister brand, Supreme.

Shop in a Box

The latest in the world of pop-up retail? From Singapore comes the Venue VBOX, a portable store in a shipping container, which can be set-up temporarily. Any place. Any time.

The VBOX enables a brand or company to follow an event they wish to align their brand with, or pop up where consumers least expect it. Tag along with a photography exhibition or set up shop temporarily at a large sporting event. Brands can even showcase items that consumers may not otherwise be able to purchase elsewhere: just fill the VBOX with one-offs or special editions and you'll pull in consumers with the prospect that they'll able to purchase something unique.

The VBOX comes self-contained and equipped with an iMac and iPod HiFi. It's entirely ready to go; all that needs to be done is fill it with enticing products. To date the VBOX has housed collections by some of the fashion world’s most prestigious names: RAF SIMONS (Prada Group) and limited PUMA designer co-labs by Alexander McQueen, Christy Turlington, Mihara Yasuhiro as well as CDs, magazines/books and Motorola phones.

Whether the VBOX is placed in a remote village in Spain, on a beach in California or on the ski slopes of Canada, it's a refreshing way to inject fun and excitement into a brand and win over a swag full of new consumers. Japanese clothing brand UNIQLO used container stores for its recent launch in the United States. More about that here. And for much more on pop-up retail, check out trendwatching.com's overview.

Inner City Retail

post from Marvin a.k.a. eMarv

I was just reading the "Welcome to Metropolis" article in Retail Traffic magazine. The article states that "MacFarlane already has 2.2 billion to invest. Meanwhile, DLC Management Corp. Has joined with G.L. Blackstone & Associates to form DLC UrbanCore LLC and is sitting on $100 million in capital." Imagine that! (I wish I had $100M to sit on!) I actually know of a couple of potential infill sites in Baltimore that could be ideal for redevelopment.

BTW, for those that are not convinced about inner city retail, here's an impressive stat from the retail traffic article: "In 2002, ...inner city shoppers went outside their neighborhoods to buy $42 billion in goods, or 25 percent of the total $122 billion retail demand of those consumers, according to a study for the Boston-based Initiative for Competitive Inner City by Boston Consulting Group Analytics with Claritas Inc."

Another benefit (according to executives in the know) is the good returns. G. Lamont Blackstone of UrbanCore states that they are exceeding 13 percent returns and Victor MacFarlane says "the return rate for an initial $50 million (of a total $3 billion) invested by the California Public Employees' Retirement System was 30 percent in 1996."

Still not convinced, here's another extract from the article:
Baldwin Hills-and other inner city successes like Harlem USA, and Gulfgate Center in Houston-are convincing a widening pool of players that investment in minority communities is a good bet. "It will increasingly become mainstream as retailers recognize that there are few other commercial real estate opportunities in this country of the magnitude these present," says Capri CEO and Chairman Quinton Primo, III.

So where are the big inner city players looking next? (I thought you'd never ask... :)
According to Retail Traffic, they are looking in Seattle, Phoenix, Tucson, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Austin, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville. While Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Detroit are flat.

Retail or Gallery??

Excerpts from Superfuture

Amsterdam...
Do you ever get that ' why-haven't-i-discovered-this-place-before' feeling? it just happened to me when visiting this interesting streetsmart store [hilariously, brian jensen of copenhagen's wood wood knew ALL about it and first informed me of this spot]. see an unexpectedly varied and hot range of streetwear, sneakers, watches, cosmetics of dr. hauschka [yo!] and in the near future an increased selection of magazines, books and CDs too. sneakers can be customized to the max, rendering them one of a kind trophies. as with all the other items, goods are carefully selected in order to offer exclusivity and quality. an added value element here are the regular art exhibitions of both emerging and established street artists plus other product related events.

Clientele:
International to say the least but also a wide local following. even some sort of cult status in japan since appearing in brutus magazine in 2002. they're all metric groupies...

Service:
Friendly and personal: leave that to bright-eyed, soft-spoken and globetrotting owner ido who's laid-back and knowledgeable ways add personality to this store.

Interior:
With a name like this it ain't hard to figure out the size but it also gives you a clue about its sobre look which in turn proves to be the proper context for 90 sqm.'s funky merchandise and art display.

Base-Miami

For better or worse, the Lincoln Road Mall on South Miami Beach is quite reminiscent of New York's 7th Avenue in the West Village. One shop however, Base, stands out from the rest by offering an exceptionally curated suite of both products and services.

Owner Steven Giles says "we're less about labels and more about the ongoing (and less easily defined) culture of the store, but amongst the labels we’re most proud to be associated with would definitely include Isabella Capetto, Nice Collective, Lemar and Dauley, Maharishi, Martin Margiela and Comme Des Garcons."

"Base is not a specific need-based store, like Sears. Your reasons are less clearly defined. One of my little secret ambitions is to redefine the concept of a department store. By and large, the concept hasn’t changed in the past 100 years. I like to find the unseen links between things. Base has its finger on the pulse of modern cultural living: it’s part of a tribe.

I say to my buying team, ‘Don’t think competitively; think creatively.’ We are selling the mix as DJs sell theirs. I recently read the book, Pattern Recognition, in which the central character seeks cool. That is the job I would love to have. She’s label-phobic, I love that! Over a period of time, my assistant and I have developed a scanning process: this is from laid-down patterns over time that are recognized by your brain. "

But it's not just about clothing and accessories, there's a service slant at Base. An in-house salon, Snip, and a CD Bar offer visitors style and satisfaction on a more soulful level. And the folks at Base have also been known to publish music, design resort uniforms and produce events.

Information about the store and several items for sale can be found on their site, baseworld.com.

H&M brand COS starts to sell Kronan bikes

Just before the Easter holidays it was announced that H&M founded retail chain COS (Collection of style) will start to sell the Swedish bike Kronan at its newly opened shops in England, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Kronan bikes are based on a classic Swedish military model (they actually started once by selling from an old stock of military bikes).

Maria Brunstedt, Managing Director of Kronan comments the collaboration like this: “We have noticed increased interest from other countries, and the timeless design of our bicycle has attracted consumers from the Netherlands and Japan for some time now. Now we have matured enough to take an additional step out into the international market. We are increasing our marketing efforts and are looking forward to meeting many more quality and style-conscious Europeans.”

Lifestyle Centers & European Roots

Exerpt from Good Malls and Bad Cities by Philip Nobel

There’s really nothing wrong with Santana Row. There should be, of course; we’ve all been bred to hate malls, and what could be more hateful than a mall masquerading as a chic, vaguely European town? Taking advantage of the sun in San Jose (the more or less real place it is situated in), the mall does away with interiority, offering shoppers an artfully paved and fountained plaza, arcaded sidewalks, live music, “street food,” and oversize chess in a shaded square—all to differentiate yet another collection of shops from the market. Crate and Bar­rel, Design Within Reach, and the Container Store anchor one end of the neighborhood, luring you with the promise of a design-rich life.

Santana Row has a hotel too—a very good one—right on the main drag, and walking out the huge stone portal of the front door at night, seeing the sidewalk cafés packed under the brick arches and the lovers all atangle at the glass-and-steel tables, shopping bags at their feet, you might be drawn in for a second, overlooking the uniform signage, the uniformed guards, the too feeble stream of traffic in the well-controlled quasi-public street, and the way everything conspires to keep the experience free of distracting surprise. You can even live there. Above the main street and ringing the plaza are flats and town houses, accessible through their own garages and concealing their own swimming pools but opening out to the little shopping city with cute Juliet balconies. “Call it energy, call it charisma, call it style & substance,” the marketing copy reads. “Santana Row has a certain something that is impervious to time.”

There’s really nothing wrong with Easton Town Center either. It’s actually sort of charming the way the planners of this mega-mall in Columbus, Ohio—again seeking that elusive saturated-market edge—have modeled the thing after an ideal American courthouse square. It’s a true Midwestern civic typology, missing only the civic, but there’s an Apple Store and a place for the kids to play outside; it’s not at all a bad place to kill a few hours between the airport and your next pilgrimage to the Wexner Center.

At Easton Town Center the mall-planning protocols are retained to a much greater degree than at Santana Row (there’s a proper interior, modeled incongruously after a Milanese arcade, and you’re glad for it when it sleets). But there is still that salutory urge to make a center, even to flatter the “consumer” by advertising it as such; and judging by the foot traffic around its signature square one winter weekday last year, it works. As at the more upscale Santana Row, the mall is surrounded by housing, though not in the complex. On the access roads all around, there are acres of low town-house blocks that reminded me of similar swaths near Harvard Square. You can live close to other people, and if you can’t quite abandon your car, it would be possible at least to leave your SUV in one of the shared garages when you scamper across the street to go to Johnny Rockets. You could even walk to a movie theater.

It was visiting those two sprawl-patching hot spots within a few months last year that began to erode my knee-jerk aversion to malls: fake places, captive minds, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. I still feel like it’s the end of the world when I see a shopping center replace the exterior life of a city—the beautiful, well-scaled, well-heeled streets of Providence, Rhode Island, may never recover from the vampire of Providence Place—but in San Jose and exurban Ohio, there is scarcely a center to mourn, and the malliers should be credited for responding to a human urge that looks like it will easily survive the decentralizing effects of multiuser gaming and Netflix.

People like to gather, and not just to shop. For many years I liked to think that it was in search of those extracommercial urban moments that Americans went to Europe in such numbers: a stroll on cobbles, a chance crepe stand or busker, the feel of being in a mass. But there’s a predictable feel to those places these days that rivals the formula of the American mall. Think of the center of any European city: the train station lets out at one end of the pedestrian-only zone, chain stores are everywhere, the unified street furniture and signage announce an advanced state of central control. Parking is underground, out of sight. Events are known, programmed, and disturbances of the peace are few. Though you’re still free to riot after a soccer match.

In terms of land use, it’s preferable to paving the orchards or cornfields to make more sprawl (even in the form of little downtowns), but experientially the zentrum and the shopping center are fast converging. You scan the shop windows as you wander toward the city’s central point—a clock, a fountain, a bridge—just as you would gravitate toward the food court or art object at the center of some old-school mall. Walking around the center of Munich for several days last winter, I found it increasingly untenable to prefer one form of regulated commercial experience to another, to damn the American solution and reflexively embrace the European. The city fathers had even installed an ice rink at the gate of the main walking street, just as shrewd mall-makers from Edmonton to Dallas have done since the 1980s.

With free speech (thriving elsewhere) taken out of the equation, with all arguments based on “authenticity” banished to the postmodern echo chamber, with the European models of urbanity themselves sinking into the for­mulaic banal, places like Santana Row and Easton Town Center look like unadulterated good news—little training grounds for the experience of being with lots of other people on a street at the same time. That alone can build civic health. And subversion is only a wireless connection away.

SOCIALIZATION OF RETAIL SPACE

by David B. Polinchock, Brand Experience Lab

The impact of socialization of the retail space and the impact of online shopping on retail is growing daily. With the growing impact of Internet shopping, it's critical that the physical retail space adapts to this trend. What is the value of real estate for retailers today? Does a record store really need to exist as it's been for the past 40-plus years? What about banks, grocery stores, fashion retailers? If, thanks to the Internet, people are much more comfortable getting their purchases sent to them, rather then getting them right away, do we need that much space dedicated to merchandise? If we could do away with the inventory portion of most retail spaces today, what else would you do with the space? How could you make it a much more social environment, rather then being a retail environment? After all, this is exactly why places like Starbuck's or the Apple stores have boomed: they created a social space, rather than a retail space.

While people look at Starbuck's or the Apple stores and say "Yea, that's great for them, but it doesn't apply to me," I think that they're missing a huge opportunity. We think there's a coming trend to socialize the retail environment instead of just merchandising the real estate space. One such retailer plans to open this fall, Epicenter, where not only will you be able to see samples, but purchase using a "Buypod" and have everything shipped to you. They won't carry a deep inventory and may even charge you extra if you want to buy the item in the store. It will be very interesting to see how this concept works.

Socially Responsible Retail

By Amanda Gore of fashion.psfk.com

Rough Sleepers is a clever new twist on the traditional idea of a charity shop. Working with the same business model, all the proceeds go directly to the social exclusion and homelessness charity Novas, but this is no second-hand store. The rather inconspicuous facade on the main road through Camden Town hides an impressively designed space with a feast of fashion treats inside, and wonderfully friendly assistants who were very happy to guide me around the store and introduce me to the fabulous collections.
The store itself is sensitively designed by Sonoko Obuchi to emulate a shopping trolley, an object that is both the primary choice for many homeless people to transport their possessions, and a striking symbol of our consumer-led culture. A mixture of white walls, metal frame and mirrors, the space puts you inside the shopping trolley and makes you reflect on these themes.

The clothing and accessories on offer come from a range of designers from all over the world, an important point for the charity who are keen to stress this global synergy for their cause. Some designers including Robert Carey Williams, Zest by Ikuko Kato, Not Morris (Kim Jones’ team), and Ramon Barreto have created ranges exclusively for Rough Sleepers, whilst the store also sells a well-chosen range of young designers including Dexter Wong, NOM*d, Sylvia Rielle and Vinti Andrews. Currently also stocking recent LCF graduate Georgie Ichikawa, they are keen to involve graduates too, and to offer help to designers through their studio facilities located at the back of the store.
Yet another clever facet of the store is Rough Sleepers fully functioning studio/ workshop which will soon be home to the store’s four resident designers (including Georgie) who each have bartered deals enabling them to use the space for free.

Having only opened a couple of weeks ago, the store is sure to become a fashion destination for those in NW London, not only due to its unique pieces at great prices (ranging from £30 to £500), but also thanks to the guilt-free shopping it offers. Unlike the marketing ploy of Bono’s project (RED), this scheme has roots within its own community and Novas are making sure that 100% of profits are reinvested in helping the homeless in Camden and across the country. What could be more virtuous than shopping here?!

Reclaiming Suburbia

Excerpts from "Breaking the Density Deadlock" by ALAN EHRENHALT

Tysons Corner isn’t much to look at. I don’t mean simply that it’s unattractive — although it is — but that when you pass through it, along the main commercial strip of Route 7, in Northern Virginia’s Fairfax County, you don’t even get the feeling that anything substantial is there. You see a long, loose string of office buildings built in the 1970s and ’80s, scattered over a stretch of two or three miles, few of them close together or in any way congruent with each other. You pass two huge regional shopping malls, both tucked behind vast parking lots and barely visible from the highway. You don’t know for sure when you’ve reached the place, and there’s no way to tell when you’ve left.

If you work in local government anywhere, the odds are you have heard the joke that there are two things Americans can’t stand: sprawl and density. I refer to it as a joke, but in fact it comes close to being a literal truth. Millions of Americans who live in places like Fairfax County visit places such as Boston and San Francisco and wish they could recreate some of that urbanity and elegance for themselves. But faced with the reality of what true urban sophistication requires — height, big crowds, and strangers from the city flocking in on trains, they back off. That’s the deadlock of density.

The developer of this project, the Macerich Co. of California, is pressing all the right New Urbanist buttons. Its computerized graphics envision spacious plazas, sculpture gardens, skating rinks and performance space. Macerich talks about making the Intersection of Routes 7 and 123 into a new “Central Park,” a “100 percent downtown corner.”

Most intriguing of all, Macerich is promising to take the blank acres of asphalt that dominate Tysons now and superimpose a grid that would provide 54 additional pedestrian-friendly streets for traffic to move in, generate a huge increase in sidewalk capacity, provide up to 14,000 curbside parking spaces, and in the end create something that doesn’t just possess the density of a city but actually looks like a city.

My guess is that when all of this development is completed, 10 or 15 years from now, I do not expect that Tysons Corner will much resemble the green pedestrian oasis pictured in the computerized Macerich sketches. But I think it will be quite a bit better than what is there now. I also think it will be a commercial success.

I’m convinced of that because I see all around me a generation of young, mainstream, middle-class adults — label them any way you want to — who are looking for some form of mid-level urban experience, not bohemian inner-city adventure but definitely not cul-de-sacs and long commutes. There are more of them coming into the residential market every year. They like the idea of having some space, but they aren’t fleeing in terror at the mention of density. They aren’t willing to sell their cars, but they appreciate the advantage of having another way to get around. If Tysons Corner is rebuilt on a reasonable human scale and with a modicum of physical appeal, they will go for it, imperfect as it may be.

And then we will begin to see experiments of this sort in suburbs all over the country, launched by developers and local governments that may still be a little nervous about density but will know one thing for sure: If Tysons Corner can be reborn, nothing in the suburbs is beyond hope.If the effort to rebuild Tysons Corner somehow succeeds, it will become a national model for reclaiming suburbia.

The BOHO Philosophy

BOHO Developments seek to offer a compelling alternative for those who are dissatisfied with the choices provided by conventional development. Conventional development emphasizes the private realm, auto dependency, single use pods, privacy, exclusivity, and bigger and bigger private residences. BOHO Developments emphasize the public realm, walkability, mixed uses, community, diversity, and quality over quantity.

A Walkable Community
BOHO Developments pragmatically accommodates cars, but are be designed for people. They are to be very walkable. Cars travel slowly, and sidewalk and street designs emphasize pedestrian comfort and safety. There are plenty of interesting things to walk to, because of the fine-grained mix of uses. Walks won’t be too long, because the development is relatively compact. And the walks are safe, because there are plenty of eyes on the street at all times.

Environmental Considerations
BOHO Developments site plan, as well as construction and management procedures, emphasize resource efficiency, environmental protection and restoration. Developments incorporate elements of nature in the neighborhood and make them part of people’s daily experience. Street trees are especially important.

A Place for Commerce
The commercial center of a BOHO Development have retail stores that serve the practical everyday needs of the BOHO Development residents and its surrounding neighborhoods – needs that are currently not well served. And because of its unique character, rare good urbanism, and easy access, they also attract businesses that are a destination for citizens of the entire metro areas and beyond.

A Place to Live
The residential elements of A BOHO center cover the entire spectrum from small loft apartments above shops to larger live/work condominiums. Developments aspire to keep the scale of individual buildings rather small, which will enhance the ability to have an attractive mix of housing types throughout the neighborhood.

A Place to Work
BOHO Developments feature a traditional fine-grained mix of different residential types as well as retail stores, office space, civic buildings, people-friendly streets, squares, and recreational facilities. Live-workloftsandtraditionaloffices are pivitol the neighborhood, as the daytime occupants and visitors they draw to the neighborhood will be very helpful in maintaining a vibrant, active, daytime environment.

A Place to Gather
BOHO Developments incorporate civic gathering places, which include public green spaces, pedestrian-oriented streets, recreational facilities, shops and restaurants. These civic places reinforce a sense of neighborhood and help provide the glue that holds the people of the community together.

Importance of a SQUARE

by whaday 1.30.07

Take a look at "Squares" by Mark Childs, published in 2005. It is a design manual book for urban designers around the concept of the plaza, square, green, etc. (he does discuss other forms of public space and classifies them).

In planning and architecture here in New Mexico, the plaza is a key typology we all must study. No plaza is worth its weight in frijoles without retail to ring the exterior. This is what gives it life. It is the "third place" and provides the excuse for being there at all, let alone a reason to stop.

The typical scenario (not always followed) for the Laws of the Indies settlement requirements included an open rectangle of specified proportions with the church on the north side, government functions on the south and retail on the sides.

Make sure you do consider the role of vendors in public space in some sense, though, They are extremely important in addressing some of the key factors that make public space lively (and are adaptable to locations where a permanent structure may be impractical or costly). Again, Childs' book has lots on this, as does William Whyte and the Project for Public Spaces (based largely on Whyte's writing). Food is especially important, which Childs relates to the psychologist Maslowe's "hierrchy of needs" (meet the most basic needs first).

Mixed-Use Summit

by Jetson Green

12/18/06

Never mind the fact that I'm supposed to be finishing a final for intellectual property, I spent the day at Victory Park and the new Dallas W Hotel, attending the Mixed Use Summit, presented by Commercial Property News and Multi-Housing News. I found the seminar extremely enlightening and educational; I wanted to pass on some nuggets of green development wisdom. If you could provide a nugget, a quote of sorts, on green building and the future of sustainability, what would it be? Comments are open.

On Sustainability:

"If you're not thinking about sustainability, you're missing the boat. TODs, urban development, LEED, etc. There are four reasons you should be thinking about it: (1) it's the right thing to do, (2) your competition's doing it, (3) it adds value to the project, and (4) it speeds up the process." - Ken Ryan, Principal of EDAW Inc.

On LEED:

• "This is where the future is going and groups are getting staffed up with LEED Accredited Professionals, they're getting everyone certified."
• "It's sort of a best practices thing."
• "It's easier to sell LEED to corporate tenants, rather than human tenants, but we're starting to get there..."
• "If you have a project and people are worried about the bottom line, it's tough to go LEED, especially the contractors--they're hard to get on board, but the sales appeal is very big. Developers know the appeal is big and they're trying to figure it out..."
• "In a place like Chicago, with all the requirements they have, you're about 3/4 the way to LEED, so you might as well take the plunge and go all the way."

This conference had many of the best developers and architects from around the country in one room, strategizing and talking about the future of land use, specifically urban development + smart growth, in the US.