Once a quick and boring errand, shopping, today, has transformed into an experience that is now more enjoyable, luxurious and aesthetic. Of course, this flaneur spirit of strolling around these shopping spaces is a notion designers are absolutely loving. We now have the ability to make an event out of shopping and take our time to feel, taste, and understand the product, the company and the core meaning and beauty of all purchasing decisions. In order to match our growing curiosity and expectation for unique shopping spaces, architects and designers are producing new ways for us to be inspired about their brand, product or service.

In the retail space, active designers and architects are forced to really break from conventional architecture and design in order to capture consumers’ immediate attention. Being aware we are a forever adapting, growing and changing consumer market – the shopping space is essentially utilising an area most effectively to simultaneously entice, attract, capture and express the universe of a brand to prospective consumers in the most original, authentic and fascinating way.

The Shopping Space 2018 INDE.Award recognises a dynamic area that challenges consumer’s conventional expectations whilst still promoting their product or service in an enticing and fascinating way.

Presenting the Winner of the Shopping Space Award:

Foolscap Studio by Domaine Chandon

With a multi-facilitated Cellar door, Foolscap Studio crafted Domaine Chandon as a space where you feel a “dynamic and brand-immersive experience.” Having a French heritage, touch-points such as the velvet and brass lighting relate precisely back towards the brand’s rich history. Simultaneously, the design of the Domaine Chandon draws upon the exquisite and beautiful surrounding landscape of the area to give the shopping space an authentic Australian ambience, coloured by the brand’s European roots.

“Chandon has an international presence… but the flavour of this wine very much comes from the grapes which are grown right there on location, and that has an impact on what we designed. We wanted it to feel Australian”

Giving the retail space a unique interior, the design incorporates a fearless approach to the use of colour. When sampling the artisinal products in an idyllic surrounding, Chandon nods to the Yarra Valley as the true star of the show to inspire customers to stick around and enjoy the jaw-droppingly beautiful landscape. Integrating a tasting room, a retail space, casual sipping and walk-in tasting, the functionality of the spaces’ layout was an obstacle Foolscap Studio undertook with inspired results.

“We felt that while there was a lot of depth in design, that overall the space should be a backdrop to the beautiful view, in a way, and not fight with it.”

Having a customer base that contracts and relaxes throughout the week, spatial flow was the reorientated to direct traffic into different corners as they immersed themselves in the different features the shopping space had to offer. A new casual bar area accentuates a large yet delicate mobile structure rotating in the central area to evoke ‘dynamic, kinetic and buoyant’ elements – a lovingly crafted riff on the unpredictable nature of champagne bubbles.

2018 Shopping Space Highly Commended

The Daily Edited Melbourne Flagship by Pattern Studio

Luxury, indulgence, beauty and splendour is what The Daily Edited brand lives by. Thus, Pattern Studio was granted the opportunity to create an atmosphere with no stringent restrictions or predetermined direction, aiming instead for a cool, sophisticated yet simplistic and elegant atmosphere across even the most microscopic of details.

Working with only a few key design pieces, the flagship was primarily orientated around these focal points of the space that remains stable and confident. Pink is the backbone of the design in this shopping space, highlighting nevertheless that the space drives its way towards a more ‘grown-up cool’ aesthetic.

With precise objectives of this project being to create a high-end and luxurious retail space and, ultimately, to visually attract customers with an authentic expression of The Daily Edited, Pattern Studio provides those who may not be familiar with the brand a chance to understand it in a brighter and more refined light. 

Aesop partnered with the INDE.Awards to present this year’s Shopping Space Award to present the regions most influential shopping space.

With a main office in Melbourne, Aesop is one of the world’s leading skin, hair and body care companies. With a priority to produce utilitarian products over their aesthetic aspects, Aesop still creates a balance between attraction and practicality in their design and service approach. Working with the architecture of what already exists, Aesop lives by the ever-changing definition of an adaptable, dynamic, and inspiring shopping ethos.

INDE.Awards 2018 Gala

The INDE. Awards acknowledge the talent and skill across the Asia-Pacific region by assessing and appreciating the designers and architects of the industry that challenge our industries conventional boundaries.

This year’s entries were more advanced, innovative, creative, dynamic and diverse than previous years. Evaluating over 400 entries this years jury were faced with difficult decisions, however were impressed with the globes promising designers and architects that are going to carry our industry further.

Aesop + Indesign Media congratulate the 2018 Shopping Space

Foolscap Studio by Domaine Chandon and

Highly Commended Pattern Studio by

The Daily Edited Melbourne Flagship