Store designers aim for engagement

When Alastair Kean, from Dalziel and Pow, came to talk at our Future Cities Forum 2, he was able to expand on the latest trends in store design.

He described the way his firm has developed the 13,000 square meter historic building in Madrid, which is home to Primark, with a 360 degree cinematic experience in the octagonal atrium, where 11 interconnected transparent screens play bespoke content and audio. The store is now ticketed because it has become so popular.

Alastair says the most important concern is to educate his clients into understanding what good customer engagement is all about, although digital might not be for everyone. In Farnham in the UK, a smaller version of the store Oasis has been designed called 'Little House of Oasis' and is a community based solution for the high street.

Inviting shoppers to be a part of an experience, led the firm to create an exciting digital offer for Mamas and Papas at Westfield, London. Here there are moving digital wall projections of clouds metamorphosing into animal shapes and a digital measuring tool for children to jump on and play while matching their size to a cast of animal characters. This is a fun and interactive way of checking height and weight for car seats and parents can test the actual seats out with their children in a cut-out Mini on the shop floor.