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Ikea is to sell solar panels at its British stores for the first time in an attempt to tap growth in the heavily subsidised green energy market.
The world's biggest furniture retailer, best known for cheap basics such as its Billy bookcases and Ektorp sofas, plans to offer solar panel packages at all of its 17 British stores within the next 10 months.
— theguardian.com
The design and space organization simplifies the visual experience for passersby and visitors even more than current designs. It also provides unprecedented visibility into the store from nearly 315 degrees, including from the sides as mall visitors arrive from other points in the mall. In the photo above, the underside of the overhanding roof is visible, covered with stainless steel panels. The back wall of the store is medium-gray stone framing the back-lit graphic displays. — ifoapplestore.com
Bolles+Wilson was commissioned to redesign the historic Hanomag "U-Boat Hall" into an RS+Yellow Furniture Outlet in Hanover, Germany—yet another example in the repurposing of unused industrial spaces and fusing the past with the present. The contemporary furniture pieces and the U-Boat... View full entry
Sears Holdings, the 120-year old retailer (which now includes Kmart), plans to start converting its struggling and defunct department stores into data centers, Data Center Knowledge reported today. A new unit of the company, Ubiquity Critical Environments, will lead the charge.
Thanks to Walmart, specialty shops, an economic downturn and—the sweet irony—online shopping, department stores are heading toward extinction, and Sears is feeling the pain particularly hard.
— motherboard.vice.com
She has become a global brand so desirable that her buildings in China are now being pirated – before they are even finished. So what territory is left to conquer?
The answer might be found by peering through the windows of an innocuous looking building on Clerkenwell Road in east London, which opened this week as the Zaha Hadid Design Gallery, part of Clerkenwell Design Week.
— guardian.co.uk
The New South China Mall was once promoted as the world's biggest mall, but it's now pretty much deserted. — edition.cnn.com
Staples, the world’s largest office products company and second largest e-commerce company, today became the first major U.S. retailer to announce the availability of 3D printers. The Cube® 3D Printer from 3D Systems, a leading global provider of 3D content-to-print solutions, is immediately available on Staples.com for $1299.99 and will be available in a limited number of Staples stores by the end of June. — businesswire.com
Sources close to the project said Foster + Partners... is helping Apple on the retail store design brief. — marketingmagazine.co.uk
Bohlin Cywinski Jackson has reached out to us about an error in the cited article at Marketing Magazine... The Regent Street and Fifth Avenue Apple Store were not designed by Eight Inc., but by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. We also continue to have a very collaborative relationship with Apple... View full entry
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple's request last week for trademarks on the minimalist design and layout of its retail outlets, the office's records show.
The description of the trademarks includes "a clear glass storefront surrounded by a paneled facade" and, within the store, an "oblong table with stools...set below video screens flush mounted on the back wall."
— reuters.com
Cahier d’Exercices is located at the entrance level of the historic Ross warehouse-store. The stone façade, its cast iron columns, and an expansive brick wall (punctuated with pieces of wood and metal) that runs the length of the store recall the 19th Century... View full entry
Modern retailers go to extremes to make their mark and compete within an increasingly competitive market. This often goes beyond out the box design ideals such as virtual retail or smartphone-based shopping processes. — DesignBuild Source
... according to a person familiar with the plans who is bound by a nondisclosure agreement, Apple has already begun work on such a store in Santa Monica. Like the Peter Bohlin-designed Apple Store on New York's Upper West Side, it will have a tall, striking glass storefront... — cnn.com
The Santa Monica store episode also illustrates Apple's unusually covert way of doing business. Interviews with almost two dozen people familiar with Apple Store negotiations say the Cupertino, California, company sometimes employs uncommon legal tactics, refuses to name itself in public... View full entry
We already suspected the Starbucks of the future might be serving a whole lot of juice. Now, it looks like tomorrow’s Starbucks cafes might be rectangular and metal — and look suspiciously like shipping containers. — blog.seattlepi.com
We've just discovered Apple will be updating their iconic Cube structure at their midtown Manhattan retail location, replacing the current cube of 90 panes with just 15 massive, and I mean massive, pieces of glass... The slabs will be roughly 10 feet wide by a whopping 32 feet high, and held together using some sort of secret, proprietary connector that will reportedly be embedded within the glass itself, rather than being comprised of mere external clips. — core77.com
The danger today comes from a shopper who walks into a store as if it were a product showroom. She pulls out a smart device and begins scanning barcodes using the Red Laser or Shopsavvy mobile app. She researches specs, prices and recommendations, and then makes a purchase from a low-cost retailer. Consumers are redefining how they shop and retailers are racing to catch up. — Joe Skorupa, Retail Info Systems News
At the Retail Technology Conference, which happened April 13-15, retailers were coping with a new phenomenom regarding shopping habits— how smartphone-enriched shoppers are treating bricks-and-mortar retailers like galleries and museums. Macy's CEO, Terry Lundgren, says that traditional... View full entry