A 90 m² shop in a Casablanca shopping centre
In a shopping centre, a shop is judged in three seconds from the mall walkway. The whole project is about winning those three seconds, then drawing the customer all the way to the back.
Study project: this case describes a typical commission handled by the practice and the trade-offs it involves. The visuals are computer-generated images produced by the studio, not photographs of a completed project.
What is decided in three seconds
A shop window is not a surface to be filled: it is a frame. Here, a single display plane set forward, a closed backdrop so the whole store is not revealed at once, and high colour rendering lighting noticeably brighter than the mall itself.
The difference in light levels between the walkway and the shop does more for footfall than any amount of decoration.
Drawing customers to the back
The layout creates a visual anchor at the rear of the store: a backlit fluted plaster niche. Central fixtures are low and perimeter units tall, so the eye can travel freely.
Fitting rooms, often dealt with last, are here carefully sized and lit: this is where a good share of purchase decisions are made.
What the landlord requires
A shopping centre imposes its own specifications: ceiling heights, service connections, fire protection, working hours, and approval of the shopfront design package. Works are carried out at night, over six weeks, with strict control of deliveries.
These constraints have to be built into the plan from the concept stage, otherwise they end up being paid for through variation orders.
A tight budget, held
A retail budget is almost always driven by the length of the lease: the investment is written off over three to six years. That means concentrating spend on the shopfront, the lighting and the flooring, and staying restrained everywhere else.
The same trade-off applies to a showroom or a corporate reception area.
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