Street Views

Fairway Market on 125 West is situated in Harlem and on the road to North. Here the rich and poor shop next to each other. The store has an incredible variety of goods, from the low end to the very high end. There is for example 8 kinds of sprouts alongside simple very fresh salad heads. On top to the salad heads there are 6 kinds of packaged salads. In this way prepared and fresh produce are alonside each other taking about the same amount of space. They have 137 kinds of fresh coffee, roasted on the premises. Logistics seems to be driven from the top where boxes are stored. The store has the feeling of a dirty market, and little attention has been paid to making a smart space. Fairway Market photos

ABC store Six floors of home furnishing, and across the road another carpet store. Each floor has its own reasonably distinctive style. The first floor seems to be organised like a market. It is designed to have interesting objects at 4 levels: the ground, mid waist, eye level, above eye level. Each of the sections are organised in little circles, where you feel comfortable to spend time realy looking at things, followed by the next circle. The feeling is one of wondering through a bazaar, each time something new. The elevators are terrible and many people took the stairs. They could not add any of the store's design elements to the elevators. (as each floor is different we had the idea that you could use the elevators to intelligently manage the transitions from the one level to the other. e.g. going up could lighten the elevator's lights // going down to the bazar the lights might become darker and more red) ABC store photos

Prada Flagship (Store) It is more of a museum than a store. It is on two levels with a fantastic circular elevator with seats where people sit in the elevator. The elevator is open on the top and a space where people talk to each other and EVERYBODY sits down. Some people even forget to press the button to go up or down. The experience is relaxing.

In terms of technology the store also uses RFID tags. [[Read more about the technology here]]

"Indefinite expansion represents a crisis . . . it spells the end of the brand as a creative enterprise. But expansion can also be used for a strategy of permanent redefinition of the brand. By introducing two kinds of stores--the typical and the unique--the epicenter store becomes a device that renews the brand by counteracting and destabilizing any received notion of what Prada is, does, or will become". -Rem Koolhaas

"Museums, libraires, airports, hospitals, and schools are becoming increasingly indistinguishable from shopping. Their adoption of retail for survival has unleashed an enormous wave of commercial entrapment that has transformed museumgoers, researchers, travellers, patients, and students into customers. What if the strategy were to reverse the equation, so that customers were no longer identified as consumers, but recognized as researchers, students, patients, museum goers? What if the shopping experience were not one of impoverishment, but of enrichment?" -Rem Koolhaas

Please sir, no photos There is extensive security in the store and we got caught takign photos, they were exactly like the guys in the museums. All dressed in black, they kept a close look on our activities. Prada Photos

Apple Store Bringing people togther around the brand. See for example the [[exhibitions]] that are hosted at the Apple Store. Apple Store Photos

Toys-r-Us Three floors full of kids magic. They had a huge ferris weel in the middle with 50 kids going arround. It was as if if the whole store was a playground. The goods were static in big racks, the focus was on moving people in effecient and convenient ways. People could easily move arround with strollers. The space to move around was bigger. Photo's from the Toys-r-Us store on Times Square

Pharmacy We came accross a pharmacy that had everything, DVDs, drugs, sweets, soda, even an ATM inside. It was as if the neighbourhood corner shop was slowly being recreateda photo of the pharmacy

What does this mean: There is a move towards efficiency and a move to experience. The Fairway Supermarket and the Prada (anti-)flagship store are two extremes. The first is about quality and price, and the latter to create an icon that embodies the brand. In the earlier case the shopping exprience is that of consumption in the latter case it is one of participation (in the brand's values) and entertainment. You become part of Prada in the store, iconoclastic, bold, making a statement, ambigious. NOT convenience, or effecient shopping at all. Prada's elevator is less about the function of "moving people and goods" and more about a moment to rest (sit) and look at the store in its 3D glory. Secondly you can meet people, everybody seems to talk with each other in the lift. Peo

Theme shops Prada, Apple and Toys-r-Us are all theme stores