Retail Design Puts on a Good Front

The competition for retail dollars has become increasingly intense, so say economists and business commentators, pointing to the unusually heavily discounted sales in stores this holiday shopping season.

One of the more positive offshoots of this competition, besides obviously pleasing shoppers, is a subtle heightening of the design consciousness of those involved in the merchandising game.

Retailers more than ever are recognizing the need to catch the eye and interest of shoppers, and to create a safe, appealing and functional environment; a place easy to recognize, to get to and to feel comfortable in.

There also is a growing recognition that shopping is very much a social event; a time to get away from homes and jobs, meet a friend, have something to eat, linger, people watch and window-shop, as well as perhaps buy something.

“To attract shoppers these days you have to create a particularly appealing atmosphere, part theatrical and part practical,” said Steven Soboroff of Soboroff/Moskowitz, a retail and commercial brokerage and development firm. Among the firm’s projects is the Malibu shopping center, and various clusters of shops in Santa Monica.

The result is that stores, retail streets and districts, and shopping centers and malls, including even a few mini-malls, are becoming much more architecturally engaging. These efforts are very much on display across Southern California now until Christmas, the heaviest shopping season of the year.

The day of the drab shop front, the dull strip of stores and the predictable numbing and disorienting malls is declining. Emerging is a retail architecture distinguished by a new respect for pedestrian traffic, be it on the street or in a mall, a willingness to experiment with forms and materials in the styling of facades and interiors, and a better appreciation of graphics, signage and lighting.

The play of these elements can be seen in the face lift of Fashion Island in Newport Beach, unveiled a few weeks ago.

The design doctor in this case was the Jerde Partnership, which in the last few years has emerged as one of the nation’s leading practitioners of retail renewal and restoration.

Among the Venice firm’s projects is the Mediterranean-inspired, multicolored, multileveled and multiangled Horton Plaza in San Diego, and the more subdued though still sprightly Westside Pavilion and Seventh Market Place in Los Angeles.

In Fashion Island, the firm took what was a staid and predictable shopping center and subtly shifted and styled the circulation to a more casual and serendipitous pattern, while providing a focus of sorts with a piazza and fountain.

The result is an atmosphere not unlike a comfortable Mediterranean village, albeit a wealthy, well-scrubbed and secured one. Very much in evidence is Jerde’s distinctive playfulness.

The Fashion Island effort is obviously in response to the continuing design innovations of its principal competitor in nearby Costa Mesa, South Coast Plaza, one of the largest and most successful malls in the world.

South Coast Plaza is forever showcasing striking new interiors by internationally recognized designers. The latest is a signature design of Lenox, a glassware shop, by Michael Graves. Other designs of note are the high-tech look by Eva Jirecna of the Joan & David shoes and women’s apparel shop and the slick neoclassical-styled Jessica McClintock clothing store by Gensler & Associates.

Also making South Coast Plaza appealing is how the storefronts and landscaping are varied to create a feeling of a pedestrian street lined by a collection of small shops and open cafes and restaurants. The effect lends an intimate tone to the mall, making it seem smaller than it is, and inviting browsing and strolling.

“The key is to design at a human scale while giving tenants an identity,” said Chuck Kanner of Kanner Associates. The Westwood firm is one of the more experienced in district and strip retail architecture, with a variety of projects in Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Westwood and Santa Monica.

These include some attractive mini-malls--two can be seen on the north side of Olympic Boulevard at the corners of Doheny and Oakhurst drives. Nicely detailed and well-scaled to the street and neighborhood, the malls are exceptions to the generally unappealing genre.

More mixed are three projects by Kanner on the upper south side of Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, befitting the street’s eclectic character.

They are a promising collection of interesting forms at 14th Street; a modernistic-styled mix of stores and offices at 15th Street, and a strip of shops along 16th Street with a facade made to look like a mock billboard with a picture window in the middle.

“The 16th Street design was a bit tongue in cheek,” said Stephen Kanner, the son of Chuck and an associate of the firm. Given the false front and arbitrarily angled bright steel awnings and mock braces, the effect is more like a finger in the eye.

Nevertheless, it does attract attention, which is, of course, what retailers love.