If you are designing for retail or restaurants, AMICO’s architectural metal products can provide distinctive design opportunities. Let’s look at a few application examples.
Problem 1: Limited space ruins customer experiences
Challenging lot sizes and demands for parking and drive-through elements can lead to an unsatisfying customer experience for outdoor seating. No one wants to relax and eat while sitting so close to a parking lot.
Solution: Metal screens define space
Expanded mesh, perforated metal, and laser-cut panels offer beautiful surfaces that can define space and separate spaces, improving customer experiences while maximizing the value of each square foot of your property.
Example of effective AMICO metal screens:
Microsoft’s campus planners wanted more outdoor spaces for workers to enjoy their eating spaces; however, finding that space was challenging. The solution they created was an outdoor space that, while immediately adjacent to a parking lot, was screened off by APEX03 expanded mesh, driving the separation of the two spaces and enhancing their intended experiences.
Every square foot in NYC matters. The Developer of Pier 35 aptly wanted to create a park for the city, and they found that space over the water where ground hadn’t previously existed. The problem at hand was that the space was immediately adjacent to an industrial parking lot. This space did not create the serene and placid experience they wanted for visitors. Their solution was to introduce an expanded mesh screen to separate the two spaces.
Problem 2: How do you create a distinctive visual brand language with material choice?
If customers can recognize your storefront at a glance, you are telling a powerful visual brand story that can drive revenue.
Solution: Seek out visually distinctive materials
AMICO Materials are not your average surfaces. Their beauty tends to demand attention.
Example of visually distinctive retail spaces
A McDonald’s franchise had a series of locations throughout Manhattan. They desperately need to elevate their design to tell a more savvy product story. At the same time, they needed materials that stood out to create a standard design that drives brand recall – helping customers recognize the store regardless of the street. Their solution was an APEX01 expanded mesh parapet that could be repeated across most any location. The uniqueness of the material choice and nice implementation was an excellent solution to their multidimensional problem.
Problem 3: Retail spaces are often surrounded by unappealing asphalt deserts
The reality of retail is that the built environment requires complete desolation of the natural, creating overly constructed experiences that feel disjointed and alienating.
Solution: Reincorporate natural plant life
Reintroducing plant life may be difficult because it requires the covering of valuable and limited retail square footage. The possible solution is to explore the vertical to use space more efficiently.
Example of effective Vertical Plant Growth:
This is Wilshire Courtyard in Los Angeles. Instead of creating concrete courtyards, the designers turned to plants and perforated metal pavilions that allow plant life to grow up and around, allowing space for both visitors and plant life.
This project is a parking garage in San Jose. The designer started plant life up high and allowed it to drape down the expanded mesh support surfaces. This solution creates a unique appearance while effectively softening vertical surfaces and reintroducing nature.
Problem 4: It can be challenging to draw attention to your storefront.
Traditional construction with water-tight surfaces can make it challenging to achieve unique forms.
Solution: Introduce architectural metals as a sculptural medium
Because mesh, perf, and laser panels are open, they can create lightweight surfaces over traditional structures, adding opportunity for curves and other complex surfaces. This means traditional retail design structures can be added to, to achieve new forms.
Examples of architectural metals used as sculptural design elements in facades:
Bayview Hill Gardens is a sustainable housing project that aims to provide supportive homes for unhoused families and young people aging out of foster care. AMICO’s modest contribution to the project was to create a unique and visually appealing entryway and provide sun shading. The architect designed a beautiful, undulating metal surface with custom perforated panels, giving the facade a distinctive brand and a sense of place.
The undulating perforated metal facade of the San Jose International Airport provides a distinctive and design-forward appearance as a visual ambassador to the San Jose Valley Region.
Problem 5: Location is key for business success, and your store’s orientation to the patterns of the sun may be out of your control
Sharp sunlight and glare will lead to unpleasant customer experiences with difficult-to-manage interior heat.
Solution: Introduce passive sunshades to
Passive sunshades are beneficial because once in place, they are capable of adding value throughout the installation, reducing energy consumption and carbon footprint. Likewise, passive sunshades’ glare control opens up opportunities to expand windows where plain window installation may not be possible by managing direct sunlight and heat.
Examples of effective architectural passive sunshade systems:
Problem 6: What is your boring signage communicating to your customer?
Is your signage memorable or does it fail to leave an impression on your customers?
Solutions: Make bold statements with architectural metals
Architectural metals and their broad range of finishes can create really dynamic surfaces that unlock your creativity and allow you to design in ways that your competitors are not.
Examples of memorable metal signage elements
The signage for Whole Foods features a striking corten finish that reflects its surroundings in the Arizona desert. The use of AMICO expanded mesh adds volume and establishes a strong presence that effectively supports the corporate messaging. This sophisticated design is memorable, feels authentic, and communicates in ways that other grocery stores might hesitate to attempt.
Creating a lightweight signage element that can transmit light to a building’s interior can be challenging. Expanded mesh is an excellent solution for signage because, while it reflects significant amounts of light, providing an almost glowing surface, it can also allow sunlight to pass through during the day. With this First Western Bank and Trust project, the APEX04 expanded mesh also acted as an element to the overall visual brand language for the building, being present on both the exterior and interior.
Problem 7: How do you manage customer experience around necessary equipment and storage areas?
Whether it’s a loading dock to bring in product, a dumpster, or just a drive-through that stretches around the back of a building and allows customers to see unsightly storage, there are numerous opportunities for unappetizing customer experiences.
Solution: Introduce high-opacity metal screens that can control sight lines, finish surfaces, and still allow for airflow.
High opacity materials like Modig offer great openness along with opacity.
Example of excellent equipment screening
This project is on a grand scale, but the principle could certainly be applied at a smaller scale in retail. The photo here is the Xcel Energy substation, unsightly but unmovable from a residential area. The strategy here was to clad the perimeter with Bellesa expanded mesh with an almost sculptural form, along with lighting that changed slowly throughout the night, giving a dynamic beauty to the former neighborhood eye-sore.
Problem 8: Not every surface or material choice can carry brand messaging effectively. How do you subtly and creatively communicate without introducing an overabundance of graphics and posters?
There is a difficult balance in retail design where you want to scream the virtues of a brand as much as possible, but it is easy to go overboard and introduce too much text and messaging. Making this design problem even more challenging, many surfaces cannot be customized without incurring significant costs or labor.
Solutions: Introduce subtle messaging with laser-cut or Picture PERFect materials.
Graphics and raster images can easily be translated into metal by laser cutting or perforation. These solutions open a wide world of customization for messaging, visual brand languages, and surface beautification. These processes also make it easy to achieve subtle statements that will communicate emotions and information without being overly obvious or blunt.
Example of perforated metal messaging
The Toronto Fort York Library wanted to celebrate the work of a local illustrator and incorporate a local design element into its structure. The solution involved commissioning illustrator Charles Pachter to create a pattern, which was then converted into a hole pattern on the metal sunshades on the building’s exterior.
This project is a corporate campus where they wanted to bring together several disparate buildings and teams through a renovation. To introduce a unifying element, they create a texture that was converted into a perforated metal pattern and applied to both interior and exterior architectural cladding.
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