Studio Camper and MADGI Complete Trade Center Store

Source: WWD

The recently opened Camper footwear store at the Westfield World Trade Center is one of the first retailers to open at Manhattan’s largest shopping mall, which is located at the base of the World Trade Center complex.

The store aligns with the Spanish shoe brand’s “tradition of creating unique designs and shopping experiences,” the company noted. Camper has more than 300 stores, and the trade center unit was the result of a collaboration between Camper’s in-house store design team, Studio Camper, and New York City-based design agency of Montroy Andersen DeMarco, or MADGI.

MADGI also did design work for the Camper flagship located at 522 Fifth Avenue.

“The 650-[square-foot] store represents Camper’s creative and unconventional approach to designing its retail outlets around the world,” said Steven Andersen, principal at MADGI. “The firm introduces different store concepts in order to create unique experiences for shoppers at each of its locations. The World Trade Center store’s design is based on the idea of diorama-like exhibits, in which shoes serve as the focal artifacts.”

The companies noted that they store is divided between a sales floor of 400 square feet and 250 square feet for a stockroom (and manager’s station).

The Camper store is divided into a 400-square-foot sales floor and a 250-square-foot stockroom area with a manager’s station. MADGI said the store “features a 22-foot-wide glazed storefront and entrance facing the mall’s internal pedestrian walkway, hardwood oak plank flooring with satin finish and gypsum board walls and ceiling painted gray.”

Signage for the store is made of an “illuminated, red and white, acrylic Camper logo suspended from the ceiling above the storefront entrance and additional logos attached to displays.” Interior fixtures include diorama-type displays for products as well as free-standing display tables, an upholstered bench and “stool-style tables” for the window displays.

The point-of-sale area is a “red cash wrap” that is located in a corner of the sales floor — which was positioned to “maintain the geometry of the store,” MADGI said, adding that the cash wrap “has a pullout counter to accommodate patrons in wheelchairs.”

Ajay Waghmare, LEED AP and MADGI project manager said the “white-painted, aluminum ‘diorama’ cabinets consist of boxes of varying dimensions, intended to showcase either individual pairs of shoes or small collections. The boxes feature Orion Sword LED light strips by Bruck Lighting hidden in the top sections of each display, and replaceable photo backgrounds that reflect changing seasons and inspirations for each shoe design.”

Waghmare said the merchandise fixtures were all made in Spain, and assembled on-site. Lighting is ambient and “subdued in order to focus the shoppers’ attention on shoe displays,” the firm said, adding that WB Engineers+Consultants served as the mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineer for the project.

Camper was founded in Majorca, Spain and has 300 Camper stores as well as “4,000 authorized points of sale” located in more than 50 countries. MADGI was founded in 1990 in New York and serves a variety of markets. The firm served as architect for the renovated Rainbow Room at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Current retail projects include three U.S. Polo Assn. units, six Zara stores and the Discovery TSX retail/entertainment in Times Square, among others.