California Dreamin’

Though nominally a department store, the new Bloomingdale’s flagship in San Francisco is really “five specialty stores stacked on top of each other,” says John Von Mohr Jr., design director at RYA Design Consultancy (Dallas).

“For many shoppers, the term ‘department store’ has come to connote impersonal places filled with seas of racks that make it difficult to find anything,” says Von Mohr, whose firm designed the store in collaboration with Bloomingdale’s in-house team. “To provide visitors with a more focused and pleasant shopping experience, we grouped families of businesses together on each floor, and united them visually with a central escalator well.”

Lighting also helps unify the space. Common lighting elements within the store include a glass curtain wall on the south end of its four above-ground levels that allows natural light into the space, and extensive use of ceramic metal halide lighting.

“Both types of lighting offer better color rendering of the merchandise,” notes Von Mohr. And, he says, the natural lighting and power-saving halide systems help the store meet California’s strict energy codes.

To supplement those elements, designers incorporated a variety of theatrical lighting techniques on each floor to guide shoppers, demarcate spaces and highlight featured merchandise.

The store’s 88,000-square-foot first floor is dominated by several high-end designer shops, including Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior (and by the retailer’s iconic black-and-white checkerboard flooring). To make that vast selling space more intimate, designers installed a series of floating drywall planes edged in light. And to draw attention to the cosmetics department also on that floor, decorative light fixtures were installed. (A similar strategy was used to highlight the intimates department on the second floor.)

The store’s third floor, which houses women’s contemporary fashion, has a flat ceiling plane with trough lighting over its aisles. “That helps guide floor traffic through what is essentially one large space,” says Von Mohr.

A different strategy was used on the fourth floor, which houses a men’s department that’s split into two main sections: a light and airy contemporary section and a classics area that features darker woods. Both are lit by “floating, glowing boxes,” as Von Mohr describes them.

“That lighting works well in both worlds and serves to visually unite the floor, despite the marked difference in the two environments,” he says.

Client: Bloomingdale’s, New York – Jack Hruska, executive vp, creative services; Shan DiNapoli, vp, store design and planning; Diane Koester-Sibert, project director

Design/Architect: RYA Design Consultancy Inc., Dallas – Tom Herndon, partner-in charge; Mike Wilkins, creative director/partner; John Von Mohr Jr., design director; Claudene Anderson, project manager; Pam Kennedy, resource design director; Doug Russell, lighting; Steven Espinoza, lighting

Outside Design Consultants: Flack & Kurtz, San Francisco (MEP engineers); Horton Lees Brogden, New York (lighting engineers)

Ceramic Tile: Innovative Marble & Tire, Hauppauge, N.Y.

Ceiling Systems: Armstrong World Industries, Lancaster, Pa.

Fixtures: Preferred Retail Solutions, Syosset, N.Y.; Moon Design Mfg., Vista, Calif.; Quantum Casework, Weston, Fla.; Mass Merchandising, Islandia, N.Y.

Flooring: Concept Surfaces, Dallas; Atlas Carpets, Los Angeles; Durkan, Dallas; Mohawk Carpets, Kennesaw, Ga.

Furniture: HBF, Hickory, N.C.; Bernhardt, Lenoir, N.C.; Vaughn Benz, Los Angeles; Barrett Hill, New York; David Edwards, Baltimore

Glass: Twin City Creative Mirror, Burnsville, Minn.

Lighting: Indy Lighting, Fishers, Inc.; Visual Lighting Technologies, Lake Forest, Calif.; RSA-Cooper Lighting, Van Nuys, Calif.

Millwork: Imperial Woodworking, Colorado Springs, Colo.; Woodworkers of Denver, Denver; Monarch Industries, Columbus, Ohio; T.J. Hale, Menomonee Falls, Wis.

Plastic Laminates: Architectural Systems Inc., New York

Wallcoverings: National Wallcovering, Dallas; Carnegie, Rockville Center, N.Y.; Wolf Gordon, Long Island City, N.Y.; Trikes, Dallas; Maharam, Hauppauge, N.Y.; Art People, New York; Design Tex, New York; Knoll, E. Greenville, Pa.

Photography: Timothy Griffith, San Francisco