Regresión spline

various schemes express new relationships between shops and the city, they also highlight

the importance of interactivity and experience for the physical shopping environment.

Luís Pereira Miguel, Combispace, 2009

The focal point of the space is the double-height stair that becomes a foyer for visitors. The galleries on the various floors are sectioned off using movable curtains that allow for continuous changes. The surfaces of the first floor feature a pneumatic grid that can be used to raise or lower modules to create supports or seating. The display elements, such as the mirrors in the changing rooms, feature interactive devices that receive information about products or offer connections to the Internet. A 115-metre (377-foot) long conveyor belt of clothes runs the entire length of the store.

The Colorsdesigner (International Retail Design Competition) is an initiative of the Benetton Group, promoted by POLI.design, the Milan Polytechnic’s consortium created to offer university research to the business sector and foster creativity and innovation. The competition was launched in 2007 and concluded with an exhibition at the Milan Triennale in 2009. It received over 700 submissions from some 40 countries around the globe. The objective of the initiative was to stimulate innovative visions of retail spaces (for fashion stores like Benetton’s). In fact, the brief contained few restrictions and no mention of a location, indicating only a maximum area of 500 square metres (5,382 square feet). The various projects submitted by young (mainly in their thirties) architects, notwithstanding a few naive and ‘fashionable’ trends, make it possible to identify

important signals of change, above all in the role of retail spaces with respect to the city and the use of these spaces by those who visit them.

The winner of the competition, Portuguese architect Luís Pereira Miguel, presented an environment that reconnects with the theme of the famous Prada store in New York by OMA. The Combispace project fluidly

combines the two levels of the store, focusing on an entry stair-foyer that is both a stage and theatre, turning visitors into actors on a stage. An elevated level of reconfigurability defines the display spaces: they can be easily and flexibly transformed by relocating mobile display units that can also be used to divide the store into different spaces. Surfaces, furnishings and equipment are integrated with interactive technologies, transforming the store from a simple retail outlet into a space for events or to relax in – there is also a cafeteria on the first floor.

The architect underlines the necessity of integrating digital technologies within the physical experience of retail, using not only interactive devices that facilitate the fruition of the products for sale, but also employing entertainment software that unites the real experience with its digital counterpart (for example, blogs or social networks). The retail experience is thus progressively more focused on personalisation and a sense of participating in the stories behind the products with which we identify. An increase in the user’s direct and simultaneous participation in real and virtual branded spaces represents the new frontier of client loyalty, as well as the most effective method of communicating corporate values. This intuition, similar to the flexibility of space, unites the ostentatious store fittings – clothes-filled display cases that slide on tracks along the entire length of the store – and was one of the elements that sold the project to the jury.

Ayako Kodera, Recyclescape, 2009 A continuous space is here divided by a sculptural element made from recycled clothes hangers. The latter functions as a spatial backdrop and support for the various display cases and stands. The architect took the idea of the stacked clothes hangers from falling flakes of snow.

A different approach was taken in Tokyo-born Ayako Kodera’s Recyclescape project (special mention), which focuses on the reuse of clothes hangers to divide and fit out the store. The retail space thus becomes a sort of gallery of sculptural installations, where the goods on display are an integral part of the scenery. Finalist Milan architect Tommaso Bistacchi’s Immensola proposal represented yet another play on the continuous redesign of the retail space. Using an approach more akin to that of a designer than an architect, Bistacchi proposed a transformable display module, leaving the architectural volume as a simple shell. The varying form of the interiors and the flow of visitors here render the space dynamic and constantly changing.

A similar concept is to be found in the Fabric Shop by Godefroy Meyer (special mention). This young Canadian architect presented a display system composed of a mobile structure made of steel cables and sheets of perforated steel that is used to compose the interior space. The transparency of the structure, reminiscent of a fabric, overcomes the visual barrier of traditional display systems.

More generally, the competition highlighted the need for retail spaces that function as points of social interaction, with a strong aesthetic character.

Merchandise is no longer presented in the linear rows of a supermarket, but in structures that invite us to

discover and experience spaces filled with elements in continuous transformation. The store is the physical outpost of the brand and must therefore respond to the evolution of the market and instruments of communication. It is not yet clear if the winning project – Combispace – will ever be built. However, the

Colorsdesigner initiative represents, for Benetton, an important step in the investigation as to how to transform the retail outlet.

The Benetton Group has long been a pioneer in this field. Of the many important innovations implemented by the architects Afra and Tobia Scarpa in Benetton stores from the 1960s onwards, we can mention the elimination of the sales counter in favour of a simple table and cash register, thus removing the barrier between the seller and the buyer; the legibility of the store interior from the street-front shop window, without any backdrop; the use of diffuse lighting to underline the chromatic richness of the clothes on sale; the use of neutral, steel-framed shelving; and the removal of protective packaging giving buyers direct access to the merchandise – all of which are now standard practice in all stores.

The group has also focused on the capillary presence of stores in the world’s city centres (5,500 stores in 120 countries) developing franchising chains that are united by a coherent and coordinated image. However, if the winning strategy to date was sought in standardised stores around the globe, Benetton is now developing unique megastores that propose a lifestyle in harmony with the culture and context of the country in which they are located. Ten new flagship stores are currently being completed by, among other well-known architects, Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas, Alberto

Tommaso Bistacchi, Immensola, 2009

The interior design of the store uses a single display module that is kept free of the perimeter of the space. This element is composed of modular shelves that are fixed to one another and rendered self-supporting. Immensola’s economic approach allows for the continuous transformation of the image of the store and variations in the flows of visitors inside its spaces.

Campo Baeza and the less famous Arassociati and Laboratorio.Quattro. The stores will open in cities from Russian Samara to Pristina in Kosovo, Istanbul and the Kazak city of Aktyubinsk, underlining the importance of new markets.

The 700+ competition submissions revealed a number of important trends: on the one hand, the retail outlet as the extension of an experience of the city, recalling it with sounds, jumbo screens and images of urban contexts with the shop; on the other, retail outlets as isolated oases with lounge zones for cultural and recreational events. Kazuya Yamazaki of Tokyo proposed converting outlets into a series of temporary installations spread across the city, transforming these spaces into events and unique experiences.

The competition projects also highlighted the role of digital technology in the fruition of merchandise: digital and physical space penetrate one another in a personalised and direct approach, selected by the user. Indeed, a number of submissions proposed the development of software for self- picturing in the shop spaces and uploading directly to social networking sites.

The projects also demonstrated a concern for the sustainability and obsolescence of products. For instance, some entrants designed special containers for collecting old clothes, or systems of exchange between users for ‘scrapping’ old goods. Analogous to this, other submissions featured workshops and spaces within shops for remodelling clothes, highlighting a critical vision of product life-cycles and the mechanisms of consumerism.

Beyond the single solutions proposed, the competition ultimately pointed out the need to reconsider the user’s experience in the retail space, and the rethinking of traditional shopping rituals. 4+

Translated from the Italian version into English by Paul David Blackmore. Valentina Croci is a freelance journalist of industrial design and architecture. She graduated from Venice University of Architecture (IUAV), and attained an MSc in architectural history from the Bartlett School of Architecture, London. She achieved a PhD in industrial design sciences at the IUAV with a theoretical thesis on wearable digital technologies.

Text © 2009 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images © Poli Design – Consorzio del Politecnico di Milano

Godefroy Meyer, Fabric Shop, 2009 The project finds its force in the structure and materials of the display cases. The perforated steel is reminiscent of fabric, rendering the display cases transparent. The modularity of the panels allows for the creation of different spatial configurations and houses the concealed lighting and wiring systems.