Visual Merchandising and Store Design | VMSD.com

VMSD’s London correspondent finds Old World design trends in the 21st Century

By John Ryan

Generalization is dangerous, but there are a number of Pan-European trends that have emerged over the last year that show the Old World is still capable of unveiling new thinking.

The new, good-looking, green

Certainly, green has shifted from a marketing tool deployed to win favor with responsibly minded shoppers to something taken for granted by consumers – and now is an important design tool that also looks good.

Today’s retailers seem determined to ensure they not only do their part to curb emissions and slow down their use of resources, but that they also provide shoppers with environments that appeal on an aesthetic level.

This new green wave can be seen in Marks & Spencer’s Simply Food store in Sheffield, in the north of England. Opened in April, this store has an abundance of ecologically benign features, ranging from the use of interior LED lights and a perimeter clad with sustainable birch wood panels to a digital arrivals board behind the checkouts to inform shoppers who use public transport when the next bus will arrive.

M&S reclaimed bricks from a vacant 19th Century mill for much of the structure and then clad one of the external walls with a vertical garden. This may be familiar to Anthropologie fans, but it’s a first in Europe for a supermarket.

Something similar can be seen in Berlin, where German food retailer Rewe opened a new store last year that flaunts its eco-credentials as well as serves as an architectural tour de force. First, there’s the wooden canopy on the outside, providing shade for large plate-glass windows while allowing high levels of natural daylight to flood the interior. Add a lighting system that’s attractive and low-energy and this is new green writ large.

Good-looking green can also be seen in Carrefour’s two Planet stores in Lyons, France, which opened last year. Here, two large, single-floor food and general merchandise stores are greener than other parts of the French hypermarket operator’s store estate with lower ambient lighting levels, skylights and digital shelf-edge signage, which helps reduce the use of cardboard p-o-s material. The new green spaces are organized into “worlds,” such as “marché,” “maison” and “le bio” (organic food), using large overhead beacons dramatically set into a blacked-out ceiling void. Reduced light levels in the market area mean the lighting is aimed on the product rather than the overall interior, creating dramatic light-and-shade areas, while at the same time cutting down on energy usage.

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