Designing for Longevity: Crafting Contextual Retail Spaces that Endure

In personalising their appearance to their context, innovative retail leaders challenge the standardisation of storefront façades and models, showcasing how appreciation and understanding of location enables the design to resonate with its audience. Not only does this elevate the retail experience for customers, but also ensures that the design is enduring.

Intertwining brand identity with appreciation for setting, Aēsop, Sir The Label, and COS expertly demonstrate how considered design redefines the personability of the retail experience.

Aēsop

Aēsop’s stunning Canberra Centre location pays the ultimate homage to its habitat, drawing inspiration from every aspect of Canberra’s historical legacy and abundant landscape, translating the retail experience into a unique appreciation of cultural heritage.

A sensorial immersion, the storefront exhibits a crimson-hued brass façade, purposefully juxtaposing the light, neutral tones of Canberra Centre’s interiors and instantly enveloping customers in Aēsop’s universe. The deep red hues of the interiors were consciously selected to echo the glowing maroons created by sun’s reflections upon the nearby nature reserves, and vibrant tones of the overlooking mountains.

Defining the space are two monumental cylindrical structures, acting as a basin and a counter. Their circular figures serve as a reminder of Canberra’s architectural beginnings, reflecting the circular patterns found throughout Walter Burley Griffin’s original drawings of Canberra’s cityscape, as well as the multitude of round-abouts that characterise Canberra’s roads. Crafted from UrbanStone’s Pilbara Red Marble, the rich red colour pays homage to the defining hues depicted within the Senate chamber.

Sir The Label

Exuding effortless cool and laid back elegance, Tamsin Johnson’s contemporary design for Sir The Label’s Brisbane store demonstrates a skillful interplay of the brand’s contemporary and refined aesthetic with Brisbane’s distinctive easygoing allure. Situated within the stylish James Street precinct of Fortitude Valley, the venue is a natural extension of Sir The Label’s Australian expansion.

The immense counter provides a defining centre-point for the space, composed of Smokey Quartz Venetian Glass Bricks from Austral Bricks. An ode to the brand’s meticulous tailoring and straight lines found throughout their collections, the contemporary countertop imbues the venue with a sense of masculinity, balancing the light, feminine palette utilised throughout the store.

Designer Tamsin Johnson reflects the neutral tones commonly applied in Sir The Label’s clothing in all aspects of the space, tying in the brand’s feminine designs, setting customers at ease with an aura of casual charm consistent with Brisbane’s character. Splashes of colour, seen in features such as the bronze archways of the changerooms, are subtle reminders of the brand’s cosmopolitan identity.

“Intertwining brand identity with appreciation for setting, Aēsop, Sir The Label, and COS expertly demonstrate how considered design redefines the personability of the retail experience.”

COS

Designed by Thomson Adsett, Scandinavian label COS’s flagship Brisbane store is astutely attuned to the laid-back yet contemporary aesthetic of the surrounding landscape. Expertly marrying Scandinavian style with relaxed Queensland sensibility, the multi-story retail space feels entirely at home in its environment.

Initially opening its doors in 2018, the store is notably characterised by its all-brick façade, completed with Austral Brick Nubrik Artisan bricks in Wolf. This modern design creates a bold architectural statement with an inspiring street appeal, whilst remaining on theme in its subdued neutrality. Inspired by the organic silhouettes of the clothing collections, and the clean, modern lines of the surrounding architecture, serene minimalistic aesthetics are extended across the store, inviting customers to unwind in the breezy yet sophisticated atmosphere.