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RETAIL IMPRESSIONISM
Marketing the X-Gen, Archi-Tech Magazine, by Ellen Lampert-Greau
“Cutting-edge, excitement, entertainment, hot, and cool,” intones architect Vlad Zadneprianski, describing the interior of Michael K, a 22,000-sq.-ft. hip hop mall on lower Broadway in the heart of New York City’s Soho shopping district. A senior associate at Tobin + Parnes, Zadneprianski designed the bi-level store in close collaboration with owner Haim Kedmi (Michael is his middle name, thus Michael K).
At Michael K, shopping is entertainment at its hippest — color-changing LEDs snaking along the floor, hundreds of video and plasma screens scattering MTV-like images (even up from the floor), music rocking everywhere. A DJ hosts hourly shows, with mics available for impromptu appearances by visiting celebrities who have been known to drop in, toss a DAT to the DJ, and perform a set…
“We tried to push the envelope in many directions,” says Zadneprianski. “We spent a lot of time materializing many of the owner’s ideas, coming up with new ideas, changing things as the store was shaping up, researching new technology, and learning about brands and customers. Our objective was to create an exciting, unique, and shopper-friendly retail environment that would engage all aspects of the customer’s senses, emotions, and lifestyle.”
“The lighting and audio-visual components played major role in achieving those goals,” notes Zadneprianski, who worked closely with lighting designer Christien Methot, president of Design One, and David Bianciardi of Audio Video & Controls, both based in New York City. “Tobin + Parnes realized they needed a roomful of consultants to achieve exactly what the client desired,” says Methot. “So they brought them in on Day One and, in the end, the client has a high-tech environment cooking away all day in there.”
Bianciardi points out that the technical systems at Michael K serve as a studio for content creation. “We designed the audiovisual systems as part of a bigger plan for the owner’s fourteen other stores, as well as for Michael K,” he explains. “There’s a DJ/VJ there eight hours per day creating content that can be broadcast throughout the store or sent out via a T1 line to the company headquarters in Queens and distributed to the other stores.”
A goal in designing the systems was to give each separate vendor — from Nike to Puma, The North Face to Adidas, Sean Jean Blue, Ben Sherman, Lacoste, and Polo Jeans — the opportunity to tell their story about brand and products using various media: sound, video images, and graphics. “At the same time,” says Zadneprianski, “Michael K has an opportunity to override content and play, let’s say, the same song in all spaces — which happens during hourly DJ shows.”
“We worked very closely with LD and AV consultants at every stage of the project,” notes the architect. “It was truly great experience.” The result is the storewide system takes center stage once each hour for a very theatrical show. “We set up specific cues,” adds Bianciardi. Haze fills the air, automated lighting fixtures segue into a theatrical mode, projection screens come down in the stairwells, and the audio and video run special show content.
“We knew a non-technician would be running the whole show, so it is designed on a timeline where he can select and drop in video clips and audio cues, creating blocks of content,” says Bianciardi. A show-control program called Production Designer manages the content modules on a rack-mounted Macintosh G4 computer. A larger show control system runs the entire store, including twenty video servers and MP2 players on hard drives. The systems are very flexible, allowing for special events and product launches as well as a disco if desired.
At each entrance to the store is a “story wall” comprised of video screens of various sizes — from a few inches to a few feet — as well as light boxes for graphics and merchandise displays. “A client can come in to launch a product line,” Bianciardi continues. “We can change the information on the screens via the Internet as well as the other screens throughout the store. It is a multi-medium modular system. What’s exciting is the unprecedented degree to which we had to design for any number of eventual configurations.”
Bianciardi insists, “This is not a typical themed-retail experience where there is a script and the systems are skinned on top of that.” At Michael K the technology is more than just skin deep, with many sources, inputs and outputs converging into one big switching system and patching matrixes, including the Media Matrix that is the heart of the audio system, allowing zone by zone or total environmental control.
“The sound design concept was essentially to make the place able to really ‘kick,’ with quite a bit of apparent loudness, while not impacting the upstairs neighbors, or disrupting shoppers’ conversations with each other and the sales staff,” says Bianciardi. Acoustical consultant Cerami & Associates advised on soundproofing to keep the hip-hop beat from resonating above the store.
Three different sound systems coexist in the space: the house system for foreground music, in-ceiling speakers, and self-powered subwoofers; a performance system; and the vendor stall systems, built modularly around self-powered speakers that can be patched into the stalls in various configurations to suit the merchandise displays. For speakers, Bianciardi says, “Rather than go with a few huge boxes à la a nightclub, we went with a large number of smaller boxes so that we can tailor the zones very carefully, and do so for a number of different contexts.”
“With so much going on, we had to be careful to not make the place a confusing cacophony,” Bianciardi adds. “We were sensitive to the differences in how people process visual and aural clutter. You’ll notice that most of the time there are several video sources visible to the shopper in any given area, but there is always a consistent sonic environment, either derived from a ‘primary’ video source or, more often than not, created by the in-store DJ.”
Methot’s lighting program also has several layers. “The goal was to create lighting that could convert into a nightclub, on command,” he notes, “and, with as much impact as possible, to get you into the club setting — yet with as little impact as possible in terms of seeing the equipment. It then must be restored quickly to a retail environment.”
One technique was to build the club lighting into the ceiling soffits, where automated moving-mirror fixtures are installed. The moving-mirror feature allows kinetic patterns and colors to move about the store on cue. Additional automated fixtures are built into the top of merchandise display units, just over head-high. “This allows us to create horizontal as well as vertical beams of light, with haze in the air,” says Methot.
Methot created three layers to the lighting scheme: white light for the retail experience; the automated club lighting; and color-changing LEDs used in both instances. “During the retail hours the LEDs create slow-morphing or static colors,” he notes. “In club mode there is more excitement to them; you can even control them to the beat of the music via the A/V control system.”
“There are two runs in the ceiling soffit, and two continuous runs in the serpentine pattern along the floor,” he adds, noting that are also custom-built box fixtures dropped into the lower-level ceiling grid. “The store is a visual smorgasbord. The merchandise is well lit while the architecture is accented with saturated color created by the LEDs. The look is high-end urban, a bit chaotic. It’s a hip hop mall that works.”
Bianciardi points out that, from the outset, the owner was “keenly aware of the demographics and culture of his shoppers. The target was young, urban, brand-conscious kids who listen to hip hop and wear the clothes their heroes wear. Where better to buy your bling than Michael K?”
www.architechmag.com
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