Reinventing the Way How People Feel Towards Supermarket Retail
Reinventing the Way How People Feel Towards Supermarket Retail
There has been a great debate on the fate of brick-and-mortar retail in our digital world. And the general consensus is that it is a half-full, half-empty glass situation. The shift toward online shopping does put a huge strain on traditional retail, but with that challenge also comes myriad of opportunities for retailers and designers to invent new spaces and new ways to engage customers. One of these new spaces is Habitat by Honestbee which is located at 34 Boon Leat Terrace, Singapore. Designed by Wynk Collaborative and launched in October 2018, Habitat by Honestbee is the physical embodiment of the app-based company’s grocery shopping service.
Light Collab aimed to bring the complex space alive with lighting .With the shift toward online shopping does put a huge strain on traditional retail, but with that challenge also comes myriad of opportunities for retailers and designers to invent new spaces and new ways to engage customers. The challenges include an overall 10m high space, with F&B and retail interlaced.
The concept was to make the space feel like an open-air market, where one is free to meander and discover using the app as both an all-access pass and a wallet. The architectural shell was formerly a warehouse with ten-metre height encased in solid walls. Light Collab, with their lighting concept, also further enhances the spaces.
We challenged the norm for how supermarket lighting is perceived. Instead of using special food colour for various areas such as fresh fruits, meat and seafood, the spotlights used are all CRI97 to bring out the best colour rendering while keeping the colour.
As there are large amounts of daylight penetration and light variation throughout the day, the concept of bringing the complex space alive with lighting is to have the 10-metre volume filled with daylight experiences where shoppers and diners are able to feel the ambience change throughout the day as customers shop and dine.
A layer of indirect lighting with tunable white technology is introduced to uplight the soffit by integrating a new thin pelmet seamlessly at the beams. Mounting heights of lighting fixtures were also carefully considered in the 10-metre main space. Secondary beams at 5.5 metre height were introduced to allow the second layer of spotlights to be mounted after several design discussions. This is to allow optimum placement of lighting fixtures without causing glare. The third layer of spotlights mounted at about 2.6metres are used to illuminate the F&B concepts stalls to give more accentuation to individual stalls. Lighting was also incorporated into the portable and various permanent shelving as the fourth layer of lighting. Colour temperature of the light sources were also important due to the open-ness of the space.
Surrounding the main atrium space, were pockets of spaces such as B.Bar, Wine and Spirits, Oyster Bar, Beauty Bar. These also added contrast to the large central atrium space.
