Petals as Retail Atmospheres
Plan
Concept Development
Inspiration
Market Atmosphere
Team:
In collaboration with Picciotto Arquitectos in Mexico City.
Esquivel-Sotamaa
Gabriel Esquivel
Kivi Sotamaa
Michael Suriano
Sustainability Concept: Ron Crowe
Graphics: Adam Behm
We are inspired by exotic fruit, papel picado; the colorful life of a Mexican street market and romantic notions of a paradise garden. Our proposal is an alternative to the conventional shelving organization of a supermarket. Instead of rows of relatively homogeneous displays we propose to use form, color and organization in order to produce an exiting dramaturgy that supports the staging of the products and the fantasy of shopping. We aim to create a sense of being immersed in a paradise garden, while offering an intuitive way of navigating through landmarks and clearly identifiable areas.
The shell of our proposal is a cool modern structure, the Greenhouse. It is a sophisticated bioclimatic glass building supported by a delicate wood and steel structure. The Greenhouse contains colorful, baroque formations – Flowers - concentric formations of architectural elements that produce atmospheres designed for staging the various products. The Flowers are made of Petals. The Petals are colorful ruled geometry surfaces which contain shelving, gaps, niches, and holes for products. In the center of each formation of Petals is the carpel – an oval, monolithic form which can work as a bar, freezer, counter, or when tall enough, as shelves. Some of the petals are large enough to contain space inside them that can be accessed from the service floor below.
Each Flower creates an atmosphere and micro climate appropriate for the family of products it contains. Three examples of atmospheres are the Vineyard, The Garden and the Paradise: The Vineyard is cool in temperature but warm in atmosphere. It contains wine bottles organized on a pattern on the surfaces of the petals and the carpel in the center filled with cheese and antipasti. The Garden literally has green plants growing on its surfaces and a cafe open to the sky in its center. The Paradise is painted with the intensely vivid colors and contains installations of exotic fruit and vegetables.
