Bright young things: four new retail projects that aren’t afraid to shine

It’s up there with the acoustic experience of airport departure lounges and the position of hand-dryers in small restaurant toilets.

Lighting in shops. You’d think it’s something that would enjoy a permanent stake at the top table when it comes to designing and planning. But, alas, this isn’t the case. Like so many things, you mostly become aware of the effectiveness of a lighting scheme when it’s done badly. Or simply hasn’t been considered at all.

And yet, a cogent lighting design for retail environments is critical – not only to the appearance of products, but also to the customer experience. In utilitarian terms, it plays a critical role in circulation and safety, while, on an affective level, it’s vital to in-store brand perception and storytelling.

In short, lighting supports narrative and creates desire.

Architonic has put together a selection of recent retail projects that deploy artificial light to poetic and expressive effect, producing store spaces that illuminate hearts and minds as much as they do goods.

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The intricate, geometric detail of the jewellery on display at the Nikos Koulis store in Athens is reflected by that of the space’s architectural design, authored by London-based architectural office Bureau de Change. While the front elevation at street level features a travertine-framed, asymmetric window, the interior is dominated by a highly expressive mezzanine, which has been wrapped in zigurrat-profiled, illuminated glass prisms – creating the effect of jewel-like curtain, rich with promise of what it might be concealing.

When Bottega Veneta’s former creative director Matthieu Blazy set about designing the luxury fashion brand’s flagship store on Paris’s Avenue Montaigne, light was built into the very architecture of the space.

Occupying close to 800 sqm, the space is characterised by a dialogue between Venetian glass and Italian walnut. Industrial glass blocks are embedded across floors, ceilings and walls, producing a grid aesthetic that modulates light into a soft, even glow throughout the interior. Framed by warm panelling, these translucent surfaces establish both material contrast and spatial rhythm.

Miss Sixty’s new Milan flagship, designed by NM3 and architect Silvia Guerrini, features a carefully choreographed play of light and material. Custom light fixtures illuminate the space, while amber glass partitions filter a warm, diffused radiance across the monochrome ground floor. Mirrors and travertine bounce reflections to subtly expand the space. The pre-room’s soft textures absorb light, heightening its intimacy, with a bold yellow wall catching illumination to signal the changing area. Below, the yellow-resin floor and polished-steel furnishings amplify light, transforming the basement into a luminous, flexible venue.

Lighting is the very stuff of New York-based design duo Astraeus Clarke’s Chinatown showroom. Having pivoted to lighting design from house renovations over five years ago, Chelsie and Jacob Starley have fashioned a space – occupying the corner room of a third-floor walk-up – that serves as both exhibition and social venue. Heavy, dark textiles and woods create a textural backdrop that brings the couple’s lighting pieces into strong relief. An expansive, bespoke sofa bed, replete with integrated LED strips, completes this visually and haptically rich environment.

© Architonic