Our consumer behavior is getting more and more complex, the turnover made by online retailers keeps increasing. This results in an enormous competitive situation for retailers within cities. Brands, shops and shopping malls are desperately looking for unique features to be used for attracting customers. This is what you should keep in mind when looking at the redesign of the Zeilgalerie, Frankfurt’s largest shopping mall in terms of visitor frequency and turnover, by 3deluxe.
In November 2010, a revitalization of the Zeilgalerie, designed by the architectural bureau Kramm & Strigl in 1992, was completed. Apart from a complete redesign of the façade, all inner areas the public can access have been altered as well.
As the only exterior view of the Zeilgalerie, enclosed from three sides, the façade represent the whole architecture and reduces the perception of the building’s shape and area. So, the planners have covered the characteristic three-part-arrangement of the already existing buildings with extensive design areas displaying a significant, black-and-white coloring and filigree decorations. The various levels create appealing overlapping effects and visual depth effects. The semi-cylindric building with its glass façade was given a facing consisting of horizontally arranged, matt-black metal stripes of various widths, hiding the floor distances and creating a moving visual impression – additionally increased by dynamic lighting design.
The complete façade area of the right-hand building has been covered with a media installation capable of controlling each of the all in all 19,700 light emitting diodes individually. Clear geometric patterns turn into organically looking plays of light and shade in a flowing manner. This lighting staging considers itself as an artistic-abstract realization of illuminated advertizing, which is supposed to convey urban vividness instead of concrete advertizing messages.
The entrance area and the shop windows of the first and second floor have been enlarged in favor of opening the inner shopping world towards the outside. The interior architectural concept is based on the original idea of a vertical urban structure. A special eye-catcher is the lighting installation covering all floors of the atrium, consisting of 20 LED flags that can be synchronized with each other. Their dynamically-flowing programming enchants the surroundings with a downright waterfall of light. All in all, within the scope of the revitalization, the hitherto blend of materials, colors and shapes has been cut back to quite a degree and turned into a more calm overall picture, held mainly in white. The whole design is less focused on constructive architectural elements rather than on opening up the “vertical shopping mall”.
We shall see whether this kind of design becomes the future of our real shopping world. Another point is whether the new design manages to entice online shoppers away from their computers. Probably mainly the younger audience feels attracted, quite likely due to the idea of shopping, seeing and being seen in a cool and hip atmosphere.
Constructor: IFM Immobilien AG
Architect: Architect stock(1992): Kramm & Strigl
Architekten and planners
Architect redesign (2010): 3deluxe
Completion: November 2010
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