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The high street is the busiest central area for commerce in any town or city. These streets are connected by alleyways, arcades, and department stores and are often defined by their architectural style. The high street can take different forms depending on the era in which a town or city was initially planned and constructed. Older cities may have grandeur and a mixture of architectural styles, and buildings might be listed, carrying many restraints on structural changes. Older cities tend to be more meandering, having evolved over time.
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Newer cities and towns are much more structured in their urban plan, with the retail areas clearly defined and catered for in adequate buildings that do not carry many constraints. High-street retailers tend to fall loosely into one of these categories: boutiques or local traders, department stores, or chain stores. The boutiques and local
traders, in most cases, take the smaller retail units and can be found in the connecting alleys or arcades. The department store is housed in the largest buildings, and the chain stores take up everything in between.
Chain stores - Interior Designer in Jaipur
In the Western world, high streets as we know them today are often criticized for having the same characteristics from location to location. Many believe this is because chain stores are rapidly wiping out the existence of independent retailers. The retail landscape is often repeated from city to city, engulfing the unique cultural and social qualities of each place.
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The chain store was formulated as an alternative retail type to the department store and offered mass-produced goods at low prices, thus appealing to the working classes. Woolworths was one of the first recorded chain stores with its first store opening in New York in 1879. After 120 years of trading, Woolworths finally closed its doors in 2009, unable to compete with online retailing. Due to globalization and the ease of importing/exporting and efficient travel, chain stores today are implemented worldwide. The design of chain stores is in line with current design trends and takes inspiration from premium fashion stores, as discussed in Chapter 2. It does,
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however, tend to use a less expensive palette of materials and finishes. The interior schemes tend to last around six years before being completely replaced, but are often updated through the use of colour and graphics in between. Chain stores tend to work on three different cost levels in terms of the interior fit-out: high-spend, medium-spend and low-spend, depending on where the store is being implemented. Retail designers consider these three options when putting together a package of drawings for the interior space, and offer alternative arrangements and specifications to suit all three budgets. In all cases, there would be a selection of fixtures and finishes that would remain for all schemes, which are often main features such as the cash desk/servery area, for instance
Arcades - Interior Designer in Jaipur
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The arcade as a public place for shopping, socializing, entertainment, and political engagement, first emerged in Paris following the French Revolution, it was called the Palais Royal. An arcade can generally be defined as a passageway between shopping streets that are covered, usually by a glass and steel roof. The arcade comes in many different layouts and contains rows of shops on either side with storage space above.
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The idea of the arcade can be traced back to the passageways of the Eastern bazaars and traditionally provides space to smaller retailers and designers/makers. The architectural style of the arcade is incredibly ornate, with many fine examples still existing throughout the Western world. One of the most prominent features of the arcade is the glass atrium, which brings in natural light and connects the interior with the exterior. Each shop facade has the same architectural detail and retailers must keep to the design style in terms of graphics and signage.
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Shopping centers or malls were pioneered in America during the 1950s. The malls were built on the outskirts of the cities and had plenty of parking space and service areas for suitable access. The shopping center has been criticized over the years for turning cities into ‘ghost towns’; this is certainly evident in America. In Britain, many shopping centers are built in the center of the city and are the pinnacle of the shopping area, with the high street leading from them. The architecture of the early shopping centers was often made up of concrete structures that were oppressive and unfriendly, and many have now been replaced by airy glass and steel structures with impressive atriums and natural light flooding through to the interior.
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The design and building of a shopping center is a good example of how architects, landscape designers, and interior designers work together. The architect is responsible for the building scheme and working out the general circulation and division of space; the landscape designer specializes in planting in the malls and outdoor spaces, whilst the interior designer, often specializing in retail design, brings the building to life with theatre, lighting, finishes, seating, and graphics. The role of the interior designer also extends to the fit-out of the retail units
Circulation and layout - Interior Designer in Jaipur
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The experience of shopping in a mall begins in the car park, which is very accessible and sometimes in the
the basement of the building or to the rear. Upon entering the building, signage and graphics play a major role in aiding navigation. Maps and hanging banners are clearly visible and define the brand of the centre. Some malls are configured in straight rows and others are more meandering or have circular navigation.
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Many are set out over a few floors with escalators and lifts connecting the spaces. The walkways are very wide and have planting and seating to break up the space. The shopfronts face onto the walkways and sometimes pop out to make them
more visible. The shopping centre generally comprises a number of different-sized shop units with ‘anchor’ stores at either end. The ‘anchor’ stores are typically well-known department stores that take up a large area of the shopping centre and act as a magnet to draw customers through the mall. Sometimes the anchor is a cinema or bowling alley. This all adds to the experience of a day out.
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The main food court is often a central feature with a good selection of traders and plenty of seating. Toilets, banking facilities and cafés appear at regular intervals. Shopping centres are accessible for families and sometimes have crèche facilities, as well as baby changing in the toilets and high chairs in the food halls and cafés.
Retail units - Interior Designer in Jaipur
Retail units in a shopping centre are fairly straightforward to fit out without having to adjust the architectural
elements of the space. Unless the centre is new, an old scheme may have to be ripped out first, but this is usually
non-structural. They are purpose-built and always provide a rear door for deliveries and services, adequate space
for storage adjacent to the delivery door, a discreetly positioned soil vent pipe connection for staff facilities,
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accessible electric hook-up and a position on the roof of the building or outside wall for air conditioning. The
design of the unit has to be approved by the shopping centre management team and must adhere to the design
guidelines of the centre, as well as usual building regulations. The shop front design is the most contentious part
of the design package, as it must work alongside the other traders without obscuring the view of its neighbours,
and must sometimes include generic architectural details that are apparent throughout the malls.
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There is often very little natural light in the retail units, the only source is the covered mall. Therefore, artificial lighting plays an important role in the whole retail scheme.
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