Interior Environments Studio 4.1
Instructor: Nicolette Layne + Chelsea Lazar
EVIE 4010
Year 4 Environmental Design
Interior Design Studio
Online shopping and e-commerce have brought a decrease to in-person store shopping and have lead to store closures for major retailers and shopping malls. Consumers have found the ease and convenience of shopping at home to be more alluring than brick and mortar stores. How are retailers combatting this trend for online shopping and what can we as designers do to revive physical retail environments?
The Experience Economy & Experiential Retail
The experience economy and experiential retail are part of the answer to encourage shoppers to leave the comfort of their homes. Experiential retail is the integration of unique, engaging, atmospheric, and brand attachment experiences to supplement product in a physical store environment. The goal of the retailer and the designer is to create a memorable experience for the shopper, by creating unique experiences that surpass the isolating experience of browsing through products on a screen.
Experiential retail is about stimulating the senses in order to create unique memories and experiences that will engage the shopper beyond the actual product. How does experiential retail differ from traditional retail?
- Creates an immersive and shareable experience
- Prioritizes customer engagement – not sales
- Stimulates your customers’ senses
- Defies customer expectations
- Leverages in-store events and services
- The store experience addresses consumer needs
Cate Trotter, What is Experiential Retail? An Inside Look
Hakeem Amoo
Taylor Kulczycki
Juliana Anderson
Nadine Lowden
Emily Birch
Isteyak Ahmmed Rizvy
Tamunoibi Ekine
Nica Rugay
Hakeem Amoo
Exposure Gallery
I am an international student and I have just completed my undergraduate degree in Environmental Design Interior Environments option. I am interested in Historic buildings and adaptive reuse of buildings. Planning on working for a while before returning for my masters.
Winnipeg is a diverse city made of diverse cultures and this project aims to create a space for local photographers to express themselves to tell the story of diverse city and its people by enhancing the visual narrative of their work.
The Exposure Gallery is a space with an initial intention of telling stories through photography. It features gallery spaces for photography exhibitions and provides photography gear for sale. It also provides training support for aspiring photographers with a studio space provided.
Juliana Anderson
Healing Hands
Healing hands is a retail design store and teaching space. The owners created a retail design studio emphasizing their passion for pottery and wanting to share this method of connecting humans to their natural environment with their hometown community Winnipeg. The retail store offers 12-week lessons for ages 12+ and 2-hour workshops on the weekends for adults. For children, summer and after-school programs are available during the day and evening. The beautifully crafted decorative pieces made by the greater community of Winnipeg are used at the local cafe for visitors to enjoy each other’s presence after their class or for an afternoon outing.
Emily Birch
Focusing on local/Canadian authors, publications, and merchandise, Pages offers a smaller more curated collection of goods for visitors to browse. It serves as a place of respite during a long walk through the exchange, or a destination for those looking to expand their knowledge and learn about various topics. As you browse through the forest of books, you find yourself catching a glimpse of the cafe, offering light snacks and drinks to fuel whatever adventure awaits you. Perhaps you will sign up for a writing class in our community classroom, or grab a seat on the main display to soak up some sun; either way, there is something for everyone to enjoy when they find themselves in the heart of the Exchange. As guests wander through the two floors, they are guided into different areas of the building by extended ceiling planes which traverse the building. In each zone, there are areas with coloured carpet tiles to distinguish the area. These colours are reflected in the ceiling planes to act as a creative form of wayfinding combined with design language.
Tamunoibi Ekine
Exposure Gallery
An international student entering the MID program in Fall 2022. I am a person who always enjoys the simpler things in life and is constantly inspired by the things around her.
This project aims to shed light on the visual experiences of Winnipeg’s Downtown area and show the beauty and experiences in the art and history surrounding us and how it can be expressed through the thing we see as we explore this area. This retail space will allow people to explore their artistic side and show others their narratives, how they see the world, their homes and how they choose to describe or represent their experiences.
Toile Blanche is a retail art space located at 125 Pacific Avenue. The Toile Blanche is an Art Workshop, Gallery and Store that encourages art enthusiasts to come to this retail space in the downtown area to buy art supplies, view artworks and create their masterpieces for others to view or buy.
He wants to create a space that grants total freedom of expression and the means to do so. The primary source of income is the gallery, workshop, and retail spaces. This is due to the sales of art supplies and the owners’ art commissions and charging for the use of the gallery for events, parties, and public exhibitions and hosting classes in the workshop.
Taylor Kulczycki
Nourish
Nourish is located in the Exchange District of Winnipeg, Manitoba and will add to this beautifully preserved and historic pocket of the city by gathering the community together. The aim of this project is to inspire the mind, body and spirit. This will be achieved through the natural food market and dry market that sell fresh fruit, vegetables, herbs and oils from the greenhouse, cooking classes where one can learn how to prepare seasonal dishes from the speciality in-house chefs, and finally, gardening classes where one can learn how to cultivate soil and grow their own food. Nourish is designed to be a space where the community will grow.
Nadine Lowden
Morning Room
An international student entering the MID program in Fall 2022. I am a person who always enjoys the simpler things in life and is constantly inspired by the things around her.
Designed for a fourth year Interior Design studio focusing on experiential retail, Morning Room Market Hall is a bright and open space, welcoming all and creating a hub of community within Winnipeg’s historic Exchange District.
The building exterior keeps to the intent expressed in the form development and design proposals – building additions weave through the existing structure, creating something new while retaining the past. The glass façade features a sinuous mullion design that catches the light, and alongside drop lighting fixtures, offsets the strong horizontality of the space by drawing the eye upwards and inwards.
Inside, Morning Room includes a market hall – featuring fare from local farmers, bakers, chefs, artisans, and makers – as well as a glittering dining hall with a coffee and tea bar, and a cozy lounge tucked away behind reception. Through the market hall, community classrooms provide space for passing on knowledge, picking up skills and creating connections. A palette of neutrals and earth tones is tied together with rich woods twining through the space and accented by black metals, glass, and marble.
Isteyak Ahmmed Rizvy
Interface Technologies
Graduated in the fall 2021, I am a design enthusiast and fascinated by the ability to influence human life and our behaviour through designed environments. I love modern, minimal and efficient design approaches. One of my goals as an international student has been to use my own perspectives into the projects I designed while break my pre-conceive notions about what built environments already are.
Interface Technologies, an experiential retail environment situated at 125 Pacific Avenue of the exchange district in Winnipeg is designed to be the home for Computer gamers, Artificial intelligent specialists, Architectural Visualization specialists, UI/ UX, AR designers and digital professionals. The proposed experiential retail store will enable individuals to have a dedicated, personalize and customizable computing service with a focus on individual customer needs. The facility will provide computer hardware, software, maintenance, servicing and inventories with a dedication to serve and bring the community under one roof.
The interior spaces were planned to maximize an open environment to introduce experiential retail to provoke excitement. One of the main ideas was to imitate the parallel lines derived from a circuit board. The circuit lines inspired the use of led stripped lights that imitated the idea of parallel lines through out the environment.
Nica Rugay
Cloudburst
This project aims to nourish and enhance the imagination; giving people a space to build and to create. The makerspace encourages making the user’s visions into reality while inspiring social interaction to form positive relationships.
Having imagination is a genuine gift in our life. The feeling of having an idea and putting hours of focused hard work into giving it life: to make a mere concept into reality brings a great sense of fulfillment. These thoughts turned real, produce pride and confidence and over time, with increased frequency of achievements, passion is born. We start to see the world in a positive light. We begin to see the beauty in everything and everyone, recognizing talents and potential while striving to let it shine. This kind of optimism is not confined within us. With imagination, positivity spreads.