I am interviewing for a Job Captain position at Gensler Morristown, NJ. I have three years of experience with educational, hospitality and commercial architecture. However, the position is for someone with a retail background. My question is how is how much different is retail from the other types of architecture specializations I mentioned?
Please help my interview is on Friday!
archietechie
Jan 25, 17 2:26 pm
Doesn't retail fall under commercial?
Kevin Wagner
Jan 25, 17 2:53 pm
Retail is a much different animal. It is broker/developer driven, they know and will direct you with the info to make the retail complex attractive to tenants, and flexible to attract various tenant types and space requirements. They will expect you to understand BOMA, and understand the municipalities signage programs. The projects are always very fast track, and you will be expected to understand the planning process. Typically, they are warm shells, with the tenant responsible for the TI.
Flexibily of storefront / structural module is key to attracting tenants. I did retail architecture for 12 years..I don't miss it.
Hope this helps.
x intern
Jan 25, 17 2:53 pm
Retail is fast, repetitive and it's typically based on a VERY specific standards. Gensler is the firm that develops a lot of these standards and branding for national companies. They do a lot of roll outs as well. Good money but the repetition can wear on you.
Ruchi Dattani
Jan 25, 17 5:49 pm
From what I gather there is quite a bit of overlap with interior design, luckily I have worked with an interior designer for a year. I have experience with brandscaping in hospitality / corporate spaces and I am hoping it is somewhat similar. Regardless, I don't intend on misleading them about what I know and don't know.
Archietechie - Does it? I thought it was a different designation.
Kevin Wagner - Thank you so much!! Going to be doing a lot of reading for this interview. Currently reading this short book about retail architecture which is pretty thorough in explaining the design process/terms. Its called "Interior Architecture Basics : Retail Design"
x intern - Thanks, a lot of the colleagues I work with at some point worked for Gensler. They all say the same thing. We refer to their designs constantly when clients ask for something they like that is produced by them.
gwharton
Jan 27, 17 4:14 pm
There are different kinds of retail architecture. On one end is store design, which is very interiors-driven and mainly TI work. On the other end is large-scale retail development (malls and that sort of thing), which is heavily driven by masterplanning and distinctive architecture.
Retail is its own sub-discipline of design, with lots of specific program drivers which are not found or are not as important in other disciplines. First and foremost among this is brand identity, which for large projects translates into placemaking. If you look at the marketing blurbs for retail firms, you'll see lots of talk about branding and placemaking.
On a functional level, successful retail spaces are driven by traffic and visibility. If you can drive traffic toward a store, give it good visibility and access, and provide a strong sense of place and brand identity, you will have a successful retail project. There are also sales and security issues which need to be dealt with. Within a store, there is a traffic pattern which move through the inventory display and toward the point-of-sale.
Service access is also very, very important, and the place where I see most non-retail specialists fail when they try doing retail architecture. Vast amounts of inventory and trash go in and out of retail stores, especially food & beverage tenants. This all needs to move around and be stored behind the scenes in an extensive "back of house" which does not cross over into public areas. When you go into a store as a customer, you don't see any of this, nor should you. But it's there, and it's important.
That inventory/trash flow goes to a service dock, which needs to allow for truck traffic in and out on a regular basis. That in turn goes out into the urban traffic pattern, ideally in ways that don't create conflicts with customer traffic.
There's more to it than that, of course, but retail design is not simple and there's a reason firms specialize in it. Doing retail well is not just a matter of putting a sign out front or marking off a space on a floor plan for a shop.
Wilma Buttfit
Jan 27, 17 5:09 pm
Lighting design in retail is different. You need to make the products look good. There is vocabulary specific to retail for example slat wall and end cap.
Wilma Buttfit
Jan 27, 17 5:24 pm
And POS doesn't mean the same as when you call your car that after breaking down.
BulgarBlogger
Mar 23, 18 9:22 am
Retail is usually temporary... especially now since everyone is turning to the internet and Amazon's business strategy. With few exceptions (some flagship stores - ex. Apple) Retail is complete shit architecture... IF you want to call it that.. but if you own a firm that does it, you can make good money from it.. it sure as hell isn't something I'd want to necessarily include in my portfolio...
z6jbishop
Mar 26, 18 1:30 pm
Retail - mini malls and shopping centers are built for 10-15 year life cycle. Commercial is 20-30 year life cycle, office buildings, some higher end retail space. Institutional and hospitals are built for 50+ year life cycles. This means the safety factors, materials, and focus of the building goes from cost to longevity.
shji
Mar 26, 18 3:13 pm
Hospitality - hotels, restaurants, spa, etc.
Institutional - libraries, schools, museums, hospitals, etc.
Commercial architecture includes retail shops and offices.
Retail for Gensler probably means interiors for brand clients such as Adidas, Nike, chain clothing stores, etc. You probably will receive schemes from client's in-house design teams. Major tasks are drafting DD, CD, coordinating with the client. I don't think you have to worry that your experiences are not in retail.
Hey guys,
I am interviewing for a Job Captain position at Gensler Morristown, NJ. I have three years of experience with educational, hospitality and commercial architecture. However, the position is for someone with a retail background. My question is how is how much different is retail from the other types of architecture specializations I mentioned?
Please help my interview is on Friday!
Doesn't retail fall under commercial?
Retail is a much different animal. It is broker/developer driven, they know and will direct you with the info to make the retail complex attractive to tenants, and flexible to attract various tenant types and space requirements. They will expect you to understand BOMA, and understand the municipalities signage programs. The projects are always very fast track, and you will be expected to understand the planning process. Typically, they are warm shells, with the tenant responsible for the TI.
Flexibily of storefront / structural module is key to attracting tenants. I did retail architecture for 12 years..I don't miss it.
Hope this helps.
Retail is fast, repetitive and it's typically based on a VERY specific standards. Gensler is the firm that develops a lot of these standards and branding for national companies. They do a lot of roll outs as well. Good money but the repetition can wear on you.
From what I gather there is quite a bit of overlap with interior design, luckily I have worked with an interior designer for a year. I have experience with brandscaping in hospitality / corporate spaces and I am hoping it is somewhat similar. Regardless, I don't intend on misleading them about what I know and don't know.
Archietechie - Does it? I thought it was a different designation.
Kevin Wagner - Thank you so much!! Going to be doing a lot of reading for this interview. Currently reading this short book about retail architecture which is pretty thorough in explaining the design process/terms. Its called "Interior Architecture Basics : Retail Design"
x intern - Thanks, a lot of the colleagues I work with at some point worked for Gensler. They all say the same thing. We refer to their designs constantly when clients ask for something they like that is produced by them.
There are different kinds of retail architecture. On one end is store design, which is very interiors-driven and mainly TI work. On the other end is large-scale retail development (malls and that sort of thing), which is heavily driven by masterplanning and distinctive architecture.
Retail is its own sub-discipline of design, with lots of specific program drivers which are not found or are not as important in other disciplines. First and foremost among this is brand identity, which for large projects translates into placemaking. If you look at the marketing blurbs for retail firms, you'll see lots of talk about branding and placemaking.
On a functional level, successful retail spaces are driven by traffic and visibility. If you can drive traffic toward a store, give it good visibility and access, and provide a strong sense of place and brand identity, you will have a successful retail project. There are also sales and security issues which need to be dealt with. Within a store, there is a traffic pattern which move through the inventory display and toward the point-of-sale.
Service access is also very, very important, and the place where I see most non-retail specialists fail when they try doing retail architecture. Vast amounts of inventory and trash go in and out of retail stores, especially food & beverage tenants. This all needs to move around and be stored behind the scenes in an extensive "back of house" which does not cross over into public areas. When you go into a store as a customer, you don't see any of this, nor should you. But it's there, and it's important.
That inventory/trash flow goes to a service dock, which needs to allow for truck traffic in and out on a regular basis. That in turn goes out into the urban traffic pattern, ideally in ways that don't create conflicts with customer traffic.
There's more to it than that, of course, but retail design is not simple and there's a reason firms specialize in it. Doing retail well is not just a matter of putting a sign out front or marking off a space on a floor plan for a shop.
Lighting design in retail is different. You need to make the products look good. There is vocabulary specific to retail for example slat wall and end cap.
And POS doesn't mean the same as when you call your car that after breaking down.
Retail is usually temporary... especially now since everyone is turning to the internet and Amazon's business strategy. With few exceptions (some flagship stores - ex. Apple) Retail is complete shit architecture... IF you want to call it that.. but if you own a firm that does it, you can make good money from it.. it sure as hell isn't something I'd want to necessarily include in my portfolio...
Retail - mini malls and shopping centers are built for 10-15 year life cycle. Commercial is 20-30 year life cycle, office buildings, some higher end retail space. Institutional and hospitals are built for 50+ year life cycles. This means the safety factors, materials, and focus of the building goes from cost to longevity.
Hospitality - hotels, restaurants, spa, etc.
Institutional - libraries, schools, museums, hospitals, etc.
Commercial architecture includes retail shops and offices.
Retail for Gensler probably means interiors for brand clients such as Adidas, Nike, chain clothing stores, etc. You probably will receive schemes from client's in-house design teams. Major tasks are drafting DD, CD, coordinating with the client. I don't think you have to worry that your experiences are not in retail.