Commercial
Why the Ceiling of Retail Spaces Is Important
When you’re planning the displays and layout of your retail space, it’s easy to neglect the ceiling. But, in a market dominated by online shopping, the experience of a physical shop is crucial. If a visitor is interrupted by noticing a neglected area, that can be enough to transport them out of the purchasing mindset.
June 27, 2017
Looking up shouldn’t get you down.
Do you think commercial ceilings don’t matter? Have you looked up once in a shop and became so distracted from the experience you had to leave? We have. It’s a problem many entrepreneurs ignore, but in retail design, putting a little bit of thought into what happens above can go a long way towards a lot of good things happening on the retail floor below.
The most successful retail spaces tell us a story: narrative dots connected by visual cues, like color, graphics, merchandise, and music — just to name a few. When done well, these cues form a temporary (but sometimes very personal) connection between a guest and a retail space. This connection is fragile, but if tended to properly, it will lead to repeat visits, and in the right circumstances, to an emotional connection. But if this connection is broken, especially in that all-important first visit, a guest might experience a dissonance of sorts and actually leave – unsure even as to why they didn’t connect with the space – and never return.
Imagine you are browsing one day and find yourself in an eclectic shop with gorgeous displays; subtle, charming music; and some cool, little trinkets. There is beautiful flooring, natural wood accents, and soothing, washed-out, colored walls that make you start to forget just a little bit where you are. You start to focus in on a curious item you are picking out, and you stop for a moment to take a sip of coffee and happen to look up.
Your gaze is greeted by a nest of crisscrossing vents and ducts far above your head, enmeshed with electrical conduits, junction boxes, and exposed wires. There is an area with some damaged insulation and an area where the exposed concrete is stained. Staring down at you are oddly spaced sprinkler heads, framed by plain pendant lights. You can hear the echo of music and conversations bouncing off the ducts, and your thoughts are lost. You look back down, and all the sudden, the serene experience of wandering the store has been erased. You choose to leave and enjoy the rest of your day. As you walk down the street looking for your next browsing stop, you wonder what exactly had happened. Did you just make a decision based on an unfortunate ceiling? Sort of. But, the answer isn’t that simple.
In a world where shopping is increasingly done online, it isn’t that in-person retail design is dead; in fact, it’s quite the opposite: design is more vital than ever. People crave a special experience. They want to be transported to a different time and place, even to become a character in a story. We don’t just want to collect a piece of merchandise, we want to take with us a memento of our experience. To create that experience, commercial design can no longer afford to ignore a ceiling, a wall, or a display. A holistic design approach is key to creating a unique experience and forging a special bond with visitors.
Commercial ceilings create a special challenge when it comes to experiential design, one that must be met with an extra dose of creativity, if not also an increase (or reallocation) of budget.
Whether we choose to acknowledge the mechanical components like Sweet Iron Waffles on Capitol Hill, for example, with its bright yellow spiral ducts (not to mention, intelligently laid out conduit), or with gorgeous lighting like the cage pendants in Pioneer Square’s Intermezzo Carmine, there are outside-the-box approaches to make sure your visitors remain immersed in the experience. They will reward the space by returning for the next chapter of the story, again and again.
