Projects: Retail

Meghan Edwards -- Interior Design, 12/1/2011 2:00:00 AM

Winner: Peter Marino Architect
Project: Chanel
Location: New York

To play up the artsy vibe of the downtown neighborhood, Interior Design Hall of Fame member Peter Marino updated the ultimate uptown label's materials palette and branding imagery with commissioned artwork and installations. Flooring of polished concrete and shelving of glass and powder-coated steel create a graphic black-and-white backdrop throughout the 4,170-square-foot boutique's sales floor. Shoppers are greeted by a 10-foot-tall Chanel No. 5 perfume bottle rendered in acrylic and inset with LCD screens playing brand-themed videos. Next, in the area dedicated to handbags, shoes, sunglasses, watches, and beauty products, eyes gravitate to artist Richard Woods's signature wood-grain pattern, which wraps structural columns. Strictly nonstructural are the stacked and molded vintage records that rise to the ceiling in the ready-to-wear department. Here, carpet is tweed, referencing the Chanel suit.

Winner: Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands
Project: Tsvetnoy Central Market
Location: Moscow

For the food market on the top two levels of a massive new department store, Paul Sandilands referenced the colorful history of the site, a 19th-century flower market. Shoppers' clothing and the produce they're perusing provide the literal color for the 42,300-square-foot space. Counters are walnut, and structural columns are white, clad in Corian set aglow by metal-halide and tungsten-halogen fixtures recessed in the suspended ceiling. Comprising 2,600 panels of polished stainless steel, laser-cut and embossed with the help of 3-D computer modeling, the ceiling reflects the bustling activity below. The ceiling's 23-foot height, meanwhile, allows for a mezzanine with a 50-foot-long bar, two restaurants, and terraces. Extending up to the skylight above the mezzanine and all the way down through the central atrium to the lobby, Sandilands's rippled steel effectively unifies the entire interior of the building, designed by the architecture firm Project Meganom.

Merit: Elliott + Associates Architects
Project: Uptown Kids
Location: Oklahoma City

A request to treat the clothing like art in the space gave rise to the grid theme, played out as lines on walls and a system of painted steel pipes.

Merit: HMKM
Project: Tsvetnoy Central Market

Location: Moscow

Five levels of a new department store are defined by reflective metallic paneling and rotating artworks, such as Ivan Brazhkin's whopping self-portrait.

Merit: Elliott + Associates Architects
Project: Balliets

Location: Oklahoma City

A staircase in travertine, sandblasted pine, white oak, and laminated glass dominates the 30-foot-high central atrium, connecting two levels of fashion.