Kiwi Discovery – Auckland Airport in New Zealand by Studio Gascoigne

Article source: Studio Gascoigne

When we received the brief for Kiwi Discovery’s new tourist and souvenir shop in the refurbished Auckland International Airport terminal it sounded like a fun project to showcase a wide variety of New Zealand products and memories to departing tourists. When we set about the design challenge however, it was trickier than we thought!

The wedge-shaped tenancy had to house a huge number of completely different products, which range from the very small, e.g. keyrings up to large sheepskin duvets. Many of these items come with mismatching proprietary stands and nearly all contain small writing which makes them very hard to identify at a distance.

There is also some apparel but most of this is Merino woollens of subdued colours aimed at the Asian market. There was also some food, including chilled items, and variety of Manuka honey products (most contained in very bright packaging with gold accents to indicate their expensive nature to Asian customers) and these are a big seller.

Image Courtesy © Studio Gascoigne

• Architects: Studio Gascoigne
• Project: Kiwi Discovery – Auckland Airport
• Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Image Courtesy © Studio Gascoigne

The brief called for a neutral palette to compliment the back and white logo, appeal to a largely Asian clientele and not compete with the multi-coloured packaging. Signage had to be explicit to cater for (often hurried) non-English speaking customers. Racking had to be very multi-functional so that most product categories could be displayed anywhere in the store.

The ceiling was quite tall (initially at around 4.2m) which meant that the typical customer could only comfortably reach the bottom half of it, so we had to find something to put above the wall shelving. In the absence of large products or well-known brands (and the graphics they bring), we opted for various “Post Card” shots of New Zealand to remind departing tourists of what they have just seen. We tried to break up the walls up to disguise the very linear nature of the displays.

The sheer volume of product in the store meant that all the walls had to be used and there was very little spare floorspace left to work with. The large number of tourists that flow in prior to departing flights mean that we had to take care keep enough clear spaces, particularly around the counter.

Image Courtesy © Studio Gascoigne

Image Courtesy © Studio Gascoigne

The airport themselves have very strict design and building stipulations and required our shopfront to be very neutral so as not to compete with surrounding stores. We keep the palate reasonably simple so it wouldn’t clash with the (largely colourful) packaging on display. This finishes pallet consists of white and timber joinery, black framing elements, soft green to the walls timber-look flooring and plenty of graphics. We also drew attention to the counter with some hanging plants and pendant lights.

The shopfront runs the full height of the tenancy with graphic light boxes to either side to draw customers into the store. These also hide sliding shutters. We broke up the plane ceiling up by use of some suspended LED strip lights (which also give even light to the huge variety and product below) and continued this theme with the timber slats to emphasise the counter in the centre.

Working in the airport is challenging because of the highly restrictive nature of what their design and merchandising requirements in terms of product categories, branding, signage, flammability as well as their very restricted hours of work. This last factor meant that most of the fit-out was prefabricated and brought in (and X-rayed!) after midnight each day.

The project was further complicated by the fact that the airport’s air conditioning and sprinkler contractors installed their equipment at about 800 mm lower than both their, and our own drawings, showed. This meant that we had to remake much of the cabinetry and redesign the walls and ceiling during the last two weeks of construction.

The result, we believe, is both an inviting and functional one that avoids the cluttered appearance that most souvenir stores have. More importantly it is been very well received by customers and turnover has been strong.

Image Courtesy © Studio Gascoigne

Image Courtesy © Studio Gascoigne

Tags: Auckland, New Zealand

Categories: Interiors, STORE

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