The interiors of HUE hair colouring salons were designed to reflect the very different from a typical hair salon. It is designed to still appear professional, with a degree of warmth and edginess that is appealing to a reasonably wide market. The aim was to fit between the price of a professional colour treatment and a do-it-yourself colour treatment.

As the concept is being rolled out to a number of different sites, we designed the interior of the pilot store in Mt Eden to achieve this, featuring a series of pre-fabricated units to suit a variety of spaces. It has since been replicated in several other locations and has proved a successful model.

Glassons’ store on Auckland’s Queen Street was extended and revamped into a flagship concept incorporating quirky elements to surprise and delight loyal customers and win new shoppers to the brand.

The space is divided into different zones or ‘rooms’ customers experience as if they’re walking through a grand villa – starting at the spacious Salon at the front, Library towards the centre before arriving at The Conservatory in the rear.

Innovative use of decorative architectural features such as corbels, ornate Victorian verandah fretwork and ceiling roses are used to create display zones and support merchandise. A designated Web Lounge complete with interactive built-in iPad stations and free Wi-Fi is housed within the Conservatory space, further closing the gap between the on-line and off-line shopping experience.

Housed in the historic Lewis Eady building, the Hallensteins’ Queen Street flagship store is the company’s biggest at 522m².  The brief was to create an edgy and raw looking interior while preserving the character of the heritage building.

Most of the original interior and shopfront features had been destroyed, so, working closely with Heritage New Zealand to meet tough regulations, we retained and replicated as many of the historic elements as possible. We continued the design as demolition and construction works progressed, allowing custom and newly-exposed building elements to be showcased alongside modern features.

As New Zealand’s largest footwear retailer, Number One Shoes wanted a retail makeover to reflect its shift toward higher quality and more fashion-orientated products; however their brief and budget only allowed for an affordable refit consisting of little or no building work and this had to be installed without closing the store.

We designed a ‘Pop-up’ focussed fit out model suitable for mass production off-site and easy roll-out, consisting of a simple Kit-of-Parts comprised of new graphics, signage, visual-merchandising, a modular steel frame system and plywood display units. Images by Nigel Marple

Kapiti’s first concept store was designed to showcase the iconic cheese and ice-cream brand targeting the high net-worth demographic working in the CBD, to elevate the perception of products from that of just another supermarket commodity and provide a venue for tastings and corporate events.

We stripped out the previous fitout and exposed the underlying concrete and brick, reconfigured the space to house a chilled cheese aging room visible through a double-glazed display window and an ice-cream area at the front open to the street to entice passers-by.

There were significant technical challenges in hiding a huge amount of plumbing and refrigeration equipment in a century year-old building while keeping the interior as real and functional as possible.

The Cosmetic Store was a start-up concept targeting the Asian market based in Auckland’s CBD. They directly import cosmetics from Japan, China and Korea to cater for a growing market of Asian women looking for cosmetics to suit their particular skin tones, as well as Kiwi women looking for an alternative range of well-priced cosmetics.

The clients wanted a central location but their budget for rental was very limited so after looking at a number of sites in and around Auckland’s Queen St they settled on a first floor site in Victoria Street. The premises has some windows facing onto Victoria Street but these are at a high level above another shop and so are not very visible. The only access is the steep staircase, which provides only limited visibility into the shop.

Euroglass’s new site is located in the prosperous residential area of Parnell, where the client’s brief challenged us to create a very different type of sales office showroom space to attract trade and affluent residential customers.

Our response was to create a whole new type of space that showcases glass in a residential-like context. Glass is the hero product and used not only for windows and mirrors but also balustrades, white-boards, doors, room dividers, cladding, fireplace, marble-like walls, black bricks, cupboard fronts and an illuminated kitchen splash-back.