From beautiful, interactive billboards to department stores filled with vintage treasures or vibrant co-working spaces, physical retail is far from dead. With the help of innovative and inspiring designers, the high street is proving more resilient than at first feared.
BARELY A MONTH goes by without some hysterical headline declaring the death of physical retail, or the ‘end of the high street’. But according to an excellent book on the subject, by Lucy Montague, David Rudlin and Vicky Payne, neither physical retail nor the high street are critically endangered; they are simply in transition.
High Street: How Our Town Centres can Bounce Back from the Retail Crisis was published by the RIBA in 2023, and summarises two years of research into the ways in which 100 towns and cities are responding to the very real impacts of online shopping, the cost-of-living crisis and the Covid pandemic. Writing in the RIBA Journal, co-author Vicky Payne declares: ‘High streets have been in a state of almost perpetual distress since the birth of self-service shopping in the 1950s.’ And yet the trio of author urbanists conclude: ‘High streets are far more resilient than you might believe.’
A new ‘crown’ has been added to the roof of the Arding & Hobbs building, the structure of it provided by a deep glue-lam diagrid that creates two new floors of daylit office space. Image Credit: Alejandro Ramirez
What we’re confronting now, they suggest, is more of a crisis of big retail than a failure of places. Where Savills estimates that the UK has up to 40% more retail space than it can support (CACI puts the figure higher, at 52%), the authors felt that this indicated opportunity, not catastrophe. Yes, both out-of-town and town centre shopping malls are struggling, but those who can turn the key spaces into something else, or bring more activity, sensuality and experience into the mix, are having positive impacts.
On that first front – turning a retail space into something else – an upbeat article in The Guardian on 15 June 2024 listed the many uses now being found for the recently extinct department store dinosaur, Debenhams: ‘Science labs, parks, health centres and community arts hubs, lecture halls, bowling alleys’, and even a training centre for submarine engineers. The latter move was announced by aerospace and defence group BAE Systems for the former Debenhams in Barrow.
Image Credit: Alejandro Ramirez
Oxford and Cambridge are the cities with plans to turn former Debenhams stores into science labs. Basildon, Bangor and Carmarthen have declared they will convert their defunct Debenhams into health centres, and Gloucester’s Debenhams will transform into a lecture hall. Furthermore, in spring 2024, a former Debenhams in the historic Arding & Hobbs building in Clapham was reincarnated with new, vibrant retail and hospitality in the ground floor, and the upper floors occupied by office space that brings the historic interiors back to life and bang up to date courtesy of Stiff + Trevillion’s thoughtful scheme (see later ‘case study’).
Meanwhile, a third of the old Debenhams sites – often enjoying the anchor position in high streets – are still occupied by retail. Marks and Spencer, Next, Primark and House of Fraser owner Frasers Group have taken the pick of the empty Debenhams stores, the latter choosing retail brands strategically from its portfolio, such as Sports Direct, Flannels, Frasers mini department stores and even Everlast gyms.
Malin+Goetz’s outlet on Berwick Street, in the heart of Soho, aims for a moody, night-time theatre-land atmosphere
But there is also a way to liven up dead megastores and do your bit for sustainable fashion: Charity Supermarket (CharitySuper. Mkt.) is an amalgamation of curated collections from leading UK charities, displayed together with added fun (live DJs). Launched in January 2023 as pop-up retail events, with a triumphant debut at Brent Cross Shopping Centre, they have proved a winner for the charities involved, as well as the concept’s inventors Wayne Hemingway and Maria Chenoweth, both of whom have strong track records in retail, fashion and vintage clothing. It was at Coal Drops Yard, Thomas Heatherwick’s retail and lifestyle intervention in King’s Cross, that I personally first experienced the CharitySuper.Mkt. magic. On a sunny spring morning in 2024, in a space that, to me, usually struggles to find an audience, I encountered a crowd that was hopping, nodding their heads to the great live DJ mix; some people, expertly styled in vintage gear, were even dancing in broad daylight as others browsed the vintage stalls.
For Hemingway, this mission is personal: growing up on a council estate in Blackburn in the 1970s and 1980s, as a teenager his holy grail was northern soul clubs, and charity shops were where he found the eraappropriate fashion he could afford. He developed an eye for vintage clothing that translated into a profitable stall in Camden Market, and then, together with his wife Gerardine, launched iconic 1990s fashion brand Red or Dead. Having opened over 20 stores, they sold the brand and established Hemingway Design, covering everything from exhibitions to housing, while maintaining their passion for retail and vintage through Classic Car Boot Sale events.
Environmental priorities as well as a passion for individuality and quality drives Hemingway’s advocacy for second-hand clothes. He’s keen to lure style fiends away from the toxic world of fast fashion towards the often far higher quality and more durable charms of the pre-loved. And CharitySuper. Mkt. has proved that both can work in tandem. When Coal Drops Yard was lining up its retailers, Hemingway asked King’s Cross landlords Argent if a Shelter store could be an anchor tenant among the otherwise relentlessly upmarket, aspirational tenants. They agreed and Hemingway’s team put Shelter’s shopfit together from the development’s rubble and remnants. Says Hemingway: ‘We then persuaded them to let us do a Charity Supermarket; 20,000 people turned up. Aesop said it was their busiest day ever – bigger than Christmas.’
Since the first store, they have animated many more empty stores at 30 locations, most of which stay open for weeks, but some have remained in place. There are now two in Brent Cross, one a new concept, Countdown, which hosts five-day events where all stock starts at £5 and goes down by a pound each day. There are still stores at Oxford’s Westgate Centre, Glasgow’s Buchanan Galleries, and in Salford. They have two shops in Bristol, and new sites in Reading and Brighton. ‘It was clearly an idea that was right for the times,’ as Hemingway said when interviewed for BBC Radio 4’s programme You and Yours in May 2024. He is resigned that second-hand will never replace fast fashion – pointing out that fast fashion retail sales were up in 2023 by 9%; though second-hand clothing sales had also gone up by 7%. But the appetite is growing. He tells FX: ‘We can do it in every town in the UK. We are doing it as a not-for-profit, and we are working our backsides off doing this. But we will soon have our first household name sponsor on board. From the original ten we’ve now got 50 charities around the country wanting to work with us.’
Ramping up the sensuality, spirit of place or curating a bespoke experience are ways forward for other retailers wishing to retain that physical attraction – which is just the kind of brief that interior designers and architects love to deliver on. That’s certainly the case for Jonathan Tuckey Design (now Tuckey Design Studio), when Malin+Goetz, an apothecary brand that was launched initially online and in upmarket lifestyle boutiques, approached them to develop a distinctive family of their own physical retail outlets.
Says Tuckey: ‘They are passionate about the high street and the long history associated with the role that the apothecary has within it. Our brief from them has been to reflect this history and to design each shop to respond very specifically to the street on which it is located. For example, on Upper Street, Islington, we have an exterior similar to a Victorian Chemist and the interior is a cabinet of potions. In Berwick Street we’ve taken inspiration from the juxtaposition of the demountable fabric market alongside that neon night life and theatreland character. And in Docklands we’ve drawn on the American urban grid rising into the east London fog.’ (See ‘Case Studies’, below left).
There is an obvious case for boutique beauty or fragrance brands to woo customers with the actual look, smell and feel of their products. But it’s more than that, says Tuckey: ‘They have a commitment and belief in the high street, and they need their own stores as a place for communication, for consultation and testing. It’s very important to have their own staff who are working purely for them, gathering information and building relationships and getting feedback. They want to create an apothecary where people can come in and talk to staff, have a conversation. They don’t mind if people don’t buy. They are very happy to have customers find something they like then buy it online. If you like, these shops are beautiful, interactive billboards… The reality is they invest as much as they do in their shops because it comes back in sales, both instore and online. If they open a store in Islington, there is an immediate lift in online sales in that area too.’
Sometimes a physical store can do more than unlock potential customers – such as the Mexico City flagship for fragrance brand Xinú Marsella, which chose to make an impact by creating a sensory garden in which customers can restore their spirits and uplift their mood, in a city with very little green space (see earlier ‘Case Study’).
The upshot of all this renewed activity, creativity, inventiveness and flexibility, according to the aforementioned Guardian article, is that high streets will become much more like the town centres of the 1950s, with a mixture of tenants, including well-being, leisure, hospitality and workplace, and not so dominated by retail (a model that only emerged in the 1980s and 1990s). With inspired design, programming and a more proactive, placemaking-first attitude among landlords, local authorities and brands, there will always be a good reason to head into town.
CASE STUDY XINÚ MARSELLA
Image Credit: Alejandro Ramirez
When launching its flagship boutique in Mexico City, perfume brand Xinú saw an opportunity to transform a former car mechanics yard and workshop into a place of tranquillity and restoration within the bustling Juarez neighbourhood – adding precious garden space to a city with very little public greenery.
The concept and architectural design were created by Esrawe Studio and Cadena Concepts, transforming a 236m2 space into a wooden temple set within lush planting. Where once cars, motorbikes and vans would have driven into the workshop, a series of organic-shaped stepping stones draw visitors in through dense foliage into a spacious, softly lit wood pavilion.
Image Credit: Alejandro Ramirez
A wooden column at the centre of this temple mimics the trunk of a tree with timber beams radiating out from this central point, supporting a timber ceiling. The same geometries are mirrored on the wooden floors. Around each supporting pilar, products are showcased on simple shelves alongside the botanical elements that inspired the fragrance. In this way, the presentation reverences nature as well as the perfumer’s art.
Floor-to-ceiling windows are angled to follow the contours of the pavilion, creating a visually seamless connection to the garden beyond. Sections of wooden display panels are woven in among the glazing.
Client Xinú
Concept and experience Esrawe Studio and Cadena Concepts
Display and artwork design Cadena Concepts
Area 236m2
Opened Late 2023
Structure consultants Sergio Lopez
Landscaping consultants Arturo Flores
Lighting consultants Lighteam
CASE STUDIES ARDING & HOBBS
Reinventing a venerable, Grade II listed department store with ground floor activity and upper floor characterful co-working, Stiff + Trevillion unveiled the new look Arding & Hobbs in spring 2024. Built in 1910 by architect James Gibson, Arding & Hobbs was the destination store that brought many shoppers to Clapham. Acquired by the Allders group in the 1970s, in 2005 half of the building was sold to TK Maxx, and the other half occupied by Debenhams until liquidation in 2021. And it’s this half that the architects have transformed for developers W.RE, stripping out decades of accretions, of false walls and ceilings, to reveal and restore spectacular features, including a stained-glass dome, a rooftop clock tower and a barrel-vaulted stained-glass roof that had been overpainted.
The refurbishment retains many original features, including retaining vintage sliding doors, and restoring the original dark steel, arched windows of the first floor. The main ground floor retail space is occupied by Botanica Hall, a New York-style café bar and brasserie, reinstating an active and dynamic street presence on this landmark corner site. Office space is accessed by a side entrance, opening onto the original escalator, which has been retained as core circulation.
New elements play off the art deco materials and geometries of the original building, as well as riffing on motifs of stitching and pleating, referencing the drapers’ stores that preceded the Arding & Hobbs incarnation. This includes a multi-coloured felt curtain that wraps around the foyer’s inner walls, softening the acoustics, and the decorative timber screens that frame the escalators, drawing the predicted 1,000 workers up from the foyer. This atmospheric foyer itself doubles up as break-out and event space, with a reception desk that easily converts to a bar.
A new, brass-clad ‘crown’ has been added to the roof of the building, the structure of it provided by a deep glue-lam diagrid, which creates two new floors of daylit office space, offering stunning views across the city. The surrounding roofscape has been transformed into a tranquil terrace, with planting designed to increase biodiversity and provide precious outdoor space for tenants.
Throughout, the juxtaposition of old and new is thoughtfully and artfully balanced, to transform a defunct retail typology into a characterful, 21st-century mixed use space that adds an uplifting, civic quality and pedestrian allure to this high street.
Client: W.RE
Architects: Stiff + Trevillion
Area: 75,000ft2 of workspace; 90,000ft2 of retail and leisure space. Total 165,000ft2
Contractors: Knight Harwood
Consultants Exigere, AKT II, B&K Structures, NDY, B&CO, Green & Partners
CASE STUDIES MALIN+GOETZ
Three shops in three very different London neighbourhoods demonstrate maximum creativity from Tuckey Design Studio (TDS) for client Malin+Goetz. Building on a strong sense of local character and history, TDS has transformed the Malin+Goetz apothecary aesthetic into three unique retail propositions. In Islington, a cramped and low-ceilinged corner site yielded unexpected treasures when two false ceilings were removed, offering up ceiling heights of 3.7m. To return the facade into something more fitting for a Victorian-style apothecary, TDS had an authentic hardwood shopfront handcrafted in Yorkshire with curved corner glass to complete that resonance with pharmacies of the past. Inside, a more contemporary atmosphere is evoked with floor-to-ceiling shelving in pale Douglas fir. Semi-transparent curtains screen the interior in the evening, creating a more intimate, doctor’s surgery vibe. The look is completed with terrazzo flooring and Victorian signage on the door.
The brand’s outlet on Berwick Street in Soho (pictured below and top right) is a complete contrast, going for a moody, night-time theatre-land atmosphere that also evokes the life and spirit of the daily fabric market that this street was once famous for. Drawing, as usual, on the Malin+Goetz grid that pervades its iconography, square-cut solid pine battens form shelving trunks, bound by metal tape, supporting aluminium shelves. Recycled pulp panelling on the walls creates a textural backdrop, reinforcing the sensuous, tactile but improvisatory aesthetic. Bespoke tables of naturally felled solid ash guide customers through the interior to a consultation area with suspended stainless steel tap, inset sink and a lighting feature that embodies both the ‘+’ in the brand name and the iconic, green cross sign of the traditional chemist.
Meanwhile, Canary Wharf (below right) now hosts a Malin+Goetz that embodies the essence of its towering skyscraper setting. Utilising polished chrome, royal blue velvet curtains and statement lighting, a setting of skeletal shelves echo the corporate multi-storey office blocks, dissolving into a midnight blue ceiling thanks to mirrored components. The whole setting succeeds in celebrating both the location and the sleek simplicity of the brand’s luxurious, sensual products.
Client Malin+Goetz
Architecture and interior design Tuckey Design Studio
CASE STUDY CHARITY SUPER MARKET
Bringing the beauty of thrift, timeless classics, quality clothing and charitable fundraising into a series of fun events, Charity Supermarket (CharitySuper.Mkt.) has been injecting new life into declining shopping centres and high streets, and boosting income for good causes. Launched in the UK in January 2023, it has proved a winning pop-up shopping formula across 30 locations, several of which now host the concept semi-permanently, including Bristol, Glasgow, Reading, Media City Salford and Westfield White City.
The brainchild of iconic 1990s fashion brand Red or Dead founder, more lately advocate for and creator of affordable housing, Wayne Hemingway, and TRAID founder Maria Chenoweth, their hope is to ‘change the way people think about second-hand fashion’.
Starting with ten charity shop collaborators (since increased to 50), the CharitySuper.Mkt. events present a curated selection from each participating charity’s warehouses, with each charity given a proprietary, 500ft2 space. Sometimes the events are in former department stores (the Fenwicks event in London, in spring 2024, which sold ‘like the proverbial hotcakes’, according to Hemingway) an empty flagship brand store (Top Shop in Brent Cross, where the phenomenon kicked off in 2023) or a shopping centre. In the case of one highly popular regular gig at Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross, the CharitySuper.Mkt. has become a monthly event, which boosts business for all surrounding retailers and food and beverage outlets.
The team at Hemingway Design take care of shopfit, colourful marketing and unifying graphics across each site (20% of the proceeds go towards the operations, shopfit and marketing, the rest goes to each charity). An onsite tailor’s desk helps customers with repairs and alterations, to make the most of their purchase.
As of February 2024, the initiative had helped to raise over £1.6m for various charities, sold over 180,000 items and saved 53t of clothing from going to landfill.
Client Charity Super Market
Brand design and graphics Hemingway Design
