VIEW FROM WITHIN: Clothes for Retailers


When Architecture Matters

A professionally-built and well-balanced architectural project is of primary importance for a successful shopping center. That is because a shopping center must meet the requirements of three groups of people: the owners or developers, retail operators and the customers who spend their money in it. Major drawbacks in an architectural project can turn away both customers and experienced retail operators.

“Many people forget that the shopping center’s end contractor, the one who determines its success is the visitor who pays no attention at all to whether the building fits the architectural ensemble, how much it cost to build or if there are any ‘dead zones’ (as he is very unlikely to find himself in one),” says Alexander Obukhovsky, deputy director of the trading realty department at Colliers International. A customer judges a trading center according to simple parameters – I like it or I don’t, it’s beautiful or it is not, it’s convenient or it is not. He is more likely to visit a building that looks like a shopping center from the outside. He will visit shopping centers with convenient parking spaces more often, and those where he can find everything he needs and have some fun.

The architect’s role in the process of a shopping center’s creation can vary depending on the complex’s format and its location. Timur Bashkayev, the head of the ABTB architecture bureau believes that architecture is not particularly important for shopping centers in the lowest price range – like IKEA or Russian discounter Pyaterochka. In such places technology plays the major role, he says. On the other hand, there are shopping centers of the highest price range where the design is discreet and expensive finishes are used.

Thus, architecture is most important for shopping centers of the medium level where it allows the building to stand out among its competitors using color, d?cor or some interesting designs. “Such shopping centers can be described as a fair, in the good sense of the word; something bright, affordable and attractive,” Mr. Bashkayev says.

Experts highlight the Kaluzhsky shopping center as an example – it is bright and it stands out against a background of grey industrial buildings. Potential customers associate it with a retail and entertainment center.

Mr. Bashkayev says that customers are starting to understand that interesting architecture can make their project more noticeable than competitors, help it to fit into the market niche, attract a particular audience. Every architect maintains that in an ideal situation every shopping center should be unique, regardless of the fact that all these kinds of installations fall under a certain type.

The architecture of complexes located within and outside the Moscow city limits can also differ a lot. In the words of Valery Kanyashin, an architect with the Ostozhenka bureau, appearance is not very important for centers located beyond the outer ring road. “The main thing for them is to be clearly seen, to have convenient access roads and parking lots,” he says. “A customer hardly ever raises his eyes to look at the buildings.”

“There is hardly any upward movement in Mega, the movement there is horizontal – from one outlet to another, it is a kind of rotor where strategically placed anchor tenants generate the movement,” adds Alexander Tishkov, the development department director with Magazin Magazinov.

There are numerous conditions and restraints for buildings in the city and the demands for architectural projects are much higher. As getting a license is often complicated many shopping complexes look like ordinary apartment blocks or public buildings. It is really difficult to get an unusual fa?ade approved by the city licensing panel.

Functionality is another important aspect of an architectural concept. Properly organized and directed customer flow, correct planning solutions etc. are the basis for any shopping center’s success. If so called retail technologies are envisaged in the architectural project, the shopping center will be effective even if it is simple. For example, the architects’ efforts in the Kaluzhsky shopping center were minimal – they got by without any particular excesses at all. The project was successful because of its good location, immediate proximity to a metro station and the right amount of amenities.

The productive cooperation between architects and their clients may be of importance today, but still their relations are far from being ideal. The clients want their projects to be cheap, fast to build and they also want the parameters that are not covered by regular norms to be approved by the authorities. The architects have to choose between making a project that strictly fits into the specifications and their creative urges. Conflicts are inevitable, of course.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that a shopping center must not have too much or too little architecture. The work must be done with near goldsmith precision by professionals in different spheres for the center to attract the customers it was planned to. Otherwise, either the “right” customer will not visit the center, or the expenses for completing the project and the construction itself will be inadequately high.

Falling Short

Various mistakes were made when drafting projects for virtually all Moscow’s shopping centers, says Alexander Tishkov, something the contractors had not foreseen or something they failed to do even though it was in the list of obligatory requirements. “And despite the fact that the shopping centers are not making losses today, in a few years as the environment gets more competitive, these drawbacks will increasingly affect the profitability of the centers that will be losing their competitiveness,” Mr. Tishkov says.

Vedomosti has already published stories of such errors: lack of parking spaces, dead zones, underdeveloped vertical links etc.

For example, a shopping center was built in the district of Mitino in place of a market where construction materials were sold. “The customer was incompetent and the object’s format was very far from being successful,” says Denis Getmansky, deputy general director of the Vedis development company (Moscow). There is no entrance area to the center, some concrete beams and dead ends remain. Another blunder is the French Galleries (Galeries Francaises) shopping center. The client was planning it for well-off customers who shop for premium segment clothing, people who never use public transport – but there is no way one can drive close to the center.

The Auchan center in the Maryino district has its children’s goods section on the third floor which can be accessed via steep stairs or in an elevator – both routes are inconvenient for mothers with children and baby carriages. Visitors also say that the driveways in the center’s underground parking lot are too narrow and car paint can even be spotted on the walls there.

Mistakes are often caused by the clients’ desire to change a prepared project to save on construction materials. For example, the developer of the Varshavka 233 shopping center replaced the stained glass windows with cheaper polycarbonate ones. He was warned by the design bureau that in a few years the cheap material’s appearance would deteriorate and it would need to be replaced, but the warning was ignored, and this is exactly what happened. Now, even if the developer chooses to install glass instead of polycarbonate, it is no longer possible as the whole construction was made for the lighter polycarbonate panels.

The list of drawbacks is particularly large. Sometimes one cannot even guess by the building’s appearance that it houses a shopping center. The Novinsky Passazh retail and office center probably fits well into the city landscape, Alexander Obukhovsky says, but most common people cannot even imagine that there is a big and relatively beautiful shopping center behind these gloomy granite facades.

It is not true that there is always just one party to blame; these examples simply demonstrate the results of joint mistakes by clients, consultants (if there are any) and architects.

Overshooting

A less common situation is one where architects, acting with the client’s approval, put too much effort and sacrifice aesthetics to functionality and ergonomics. The Novinsky Passazh trading center is the most typical example of such an approach. “Every little tower cost us rather dearly, even at the project stage,” Alexander Tishkov says. These exquisite architectural additions probably cost our client several hundred thousand dollars without construction costs. But they did not improve the project’s profitability or price in any way.

Another example, which is already considered classical in the history of commercial realty in Russia, is the Gvozd-1 center, created by the famous architectural bureau Ostozhenka. The complex has received awards for architecture (the diploma of the International Association of Architects’ Unions), but was a financial failure. This misfortune has its reasons. In the words of Ostozhenka architect Valery Kanyashin, the client initially intended to build a shopping complex for trading in household goods, furniture, and construction materials etc. But the conditions changed and the concept was revised. As a result, a standard retail center opened and it had a standard set of tenants. “Today, the interior of this center looks strange, but this is because it was initially created for different tasks,” Mr. Kanyashin says.

Specialists also voice criticism of the shopping center in the Moscow district of Kurkino. “By trying to make the building’s facade more expressive, the architects made an installation which is very unprofitable for its owner and obsolete in style,” says Viktor Getmansky.

The most vivid example, however, is the Galeries Lafayette in Berlin by world famous architect Jean Nouvel (1996). Architects call this building “pure form” and the name of the author brought no commercial success to the project.

The King’s Will

Kings – in this context architects – can do practically everything. But under one condition – the technical specifications must be correct. For example, after the Bluewater trading center opened in one of London’s suburbs, tenants’ revenues in neighboring retail centers fell and therefore the leasing incomes plunged as well. “Consultants helped the owner of one of these centers to find a solution. After studying different possibilities they chose a different target audience. They put an emphasis on older customers studied their customs and preferences and devised the different specifications accordingly,” says Alexander Tishkov.

It turned out that this group consumes both goods and services in a different way; its members prefer different colors and interiors, they do not like bustling and noisy crowds. Architects and designers worked to meet the demands of this section of the public. As a result, the revenues in this trading center have risen, even in comparison with the period before the Bluewater complex opened.

In Russia problems usually start from the fact that the client has no professionally developed feasibility study. And those with less understanding usually suggest that the architects actually do it: “Draw a trading center for me…” they say. An architect can draw a beautiful project, but will this center work and bring profits? This is not a question to ask an architect. The answer must be in the feasibility study in which the major principle of the project’s work is determined. In other words it must say whether it will be a bulldozer or a luxury car.

The technical requirements developed by the client, often together with consultants, must include: the general size of the shopping center, the number of floors, functional composition (what it is comprised of), its height, the distance between columns, the number of places in the parking lot, the project’s theme, an item assortment matrix, price levels etc. The contents of the complex depend on its theme – for example, there is no need to attach a hypermarket to a fashion center aimed at a clothes-conscious public.

The client must also think about parking. If the number of car places is less than the center needs, it will get less customers. “Yes, there are underground parking lots, but according to statistics, only one third of all customers use them,” says Alexander Tishkov. “The reasons for this are different – narrow driveways, sharp turns, it is often difficult to find your car etc. Thus, we have to include an outside parking lot in the project.” And the only way to raise the number of car-spaces in the parking lot is to reduce the size of the shopping center itself.

The issue of vertical connections must also be solved by the joint efforts of the architect and the client. It is known that people in general are reluctant to travel upstairs; about 40 percent of customers never make it to the second floor of a shopping center. This means that a visitor must have an incentive to go upstairs and a simple means of doing so. Also, customers do not like elevators, as you have to wait for them. Escalators are most convenient and they must be clearly seen or there must be signs showing where they are.

The number of corridors in the building directly affects the tenants’ revenues. Too many corridors scare people. As a result, one of the corridors becomes the main one, the “beaten track”, while the rest are rarely used.

After the technical requirements are developed the architecture bureau starts its work. Architects may have some cornerstone questions which need to be answered before the work on the project begins. “It is impossible to start working on the project before we have a clear inside traffic scheme,” Valery Kanyashin says. Often the client’s desire to attract customers’ attention to all the outlets in the center goes to extremes. For example, he may suggest that customers have to walk past all the storefronts before reaching the supermarket section.

In some cases, the architects’ experience and professional ability to see the site’s potential and the type of space can help clients. For example, well-developed local infrastructure in the downtown allows local complexes to exist. Uptown, in the commuter districts shopping centers are a kind of recreation zone, centers of attraction. Thus, apart from the functional requirements the complex needs some space that can be developed into a public recreation center.

The Stages of a Major Journey

After an architectural bureau completes a project it must be approved by various departments of the client organization and by consultants as well. Everything must be discussed: the distance between columns, the number of stories, rooms’ dimensions, stairs etc. Changes to the project are inevitable at this stage. For example, the change in distance between columns can lead to changes in the number of airways which, in turn, can affect the price of the project as a whole.

Not only internal reasons can lead to changes, but also external ones. The market and competition can change while the project is being drawn up, new laws and legal acts are issued and normally these new documents lead to an increase in the price of construction. As a rule, the client starts saving on the architectural project.

An architect finds himself in an eternal search for compromise between all of the client’s departments, the changing economic conditions, local legal norms, etc. The fact that all negotiations with the Moscow city authorities are being held in parallel mode also adds complications to the architect’s work. “It is not clear where the water will flow to and we have to present the plan already,” says Valery Kanyashin.

Future tenants, if there are any, also make a contribution to the process. Some outlets, like Mexx or Benetton are uniform and can work on similar spaces, others are unique. Areas taken by Auchan or Real can vary by 1000 square meters. The strictest conditions are usually put forward by anchor tenants – they always know exactly what they want.

Architects say that changes are inevitable even after the project is agreed upon, usually due to the appearance of new technical systems, materials, documents etc. Quite often the client spoils the initial project. “Clients think that after they get a quality concept they can proceed by themselves and it changes the project beyond recognition,” Alexander Obukhovsky says. Ideally, those who created the project must follow it through all the stages of development, he adds.

In the West, the stages of work are somehow different. The concept-design and schematic-design stages do not match Russia’s study-project stage. Design-development includes more stages than the project drafting stage in Russia.

Homegrown Pride

“As a rule, Russian specialists cannot implement commercially effective projects,” Alexander Obukhovsky believes. The majority of Russian architects do not consider the experience accumulated by their foreign colleagues who have been creating shopping complexes for a long time and often they simply waste their clients’ time by discussing absurd ideas, he says.

The world’s leading shopping center experts most often mention architectural bureaus such as Altoon + Porter, RTKL Associates Inc, Jerde, Laguarda.Low, and Chapman Taylor. Today, many of them are already present in Russia. There are no Russian specialists at such level as yet. Or at least the experts polled by Vedomosti could not name any. It is possible that they will appear in a few years, but at the moment Russian architects often lack the experience and specific knowledge needed for creating shopping centers.

Specialized workshops are constantly in talks with retailers, anchors and chain stores, Alexander Tishkov says. They can offer solutions that are perfect for trading – with specific depth, width and distance between columns. Every retail chain is looking for ways to improve its services. In Wal-Mart they have invented a way of reading the barcodes of all the goods in the trolley instead of scanning every good purchased. This reduced the purchasing time. Therefore, a special solution has to be introduced for these trolleys such as wider aisles. Knowing such things makes the drafting of a design much quicker.

And there is a great deal of similar details. For example, there is the problem of making the storefront belonging to the furthest tenant more visible. Additional lighting is necessary here and the customer flow must be specially organized. Food courts have their peculiarities – the retail corridor must get maximum visibility from this zone. Another lighting detail is the windows – they are called “killers of trade” because when a customer sees that it is already dark he or she will hurry home.

If atriums are included in the project the designers must plan for regular cleaning or avoid making continuous glass panels. But on the other hand it is important that the retail space does not appear “striped” due to the alternate light and shadows, or is left without light altogether. Gaming arcades tend to scare off family customers who are the main visitors to shopping centers, so it means nearby shops will suffer. Also, the floor must not consist of too many different levels as it makes cleaning difficult. Numerous other factors also come into play.

The Atrium shopping center is a typical example of foreign architects’ work in Moscow. The U.S. company Altoon + Porter was offered the project. In the words of Aleksander Tishkov, not everything envisaged in the project was completed, and some of the interior was reworked by local bureaus.

If we take the way Altoon + Porter usually deals with lighting, interior decoration and details we will see that many things in Atrium were left unfinished and probably will be left unfinished until the next stage of the shopping center’s development. Nevertheless, this project is considered one of the most successful from the financial point of view by the Department of the Construction Investment Programs.

“The success of the Atrium trading center has been achieved largely due to the fact that a managing company was invited at the project drafting stage and as a result the functional rooms were projected in a way that their size is optimal,” says Yevgeny Leonov, deputy head of the Investment Policy Department of the Department of the Investment Programs in Construction.

One cannot say definitely that Western architects are better than their Russian colleagues. “Russian project organizations have more momentum where innovation is concerned and they sometimes do not consider the economy component of the project,” Mr. Leonov continues.

“Foreigners are more technology-wise, more flexible and they always work through the functional details of the object they are working on thoroughly. In general, they put a decent architectural shell over the building’s functional inside and include the calculations of future maintenance costs. Russians do things very differently. Foreigners put engineering thought above all things while Russians maximize the architectural aspect. Today, foreign project designers are good competitors for our domestic specialists, while the price of their work is on comparable levels.”

According to DIPS, the price of Russian project work today starts at about $60 per square meter on average for one-point construction and individual projects.

At the same time, in Moscow there have been several occasions when a foreign company-client chose Russian architects. And here we are talking not only about Russian knowledge of the local particulars, but also about the level of professionalism that they have achieved.

However, the knowledge of the local issues is also important. Getting approval for the project in various instances is the client’s most serious problems and it is also something which is quite expensive to solve. Architects say that the times when projects with violations of the norms could still get approval for a bribe are in the past. But “court circle” architects and workshops remain. And if a client does not choose their services, the process of the project’s approval is likely to be very difficult.

“Russian project norms are much stricter than Western ones and as a rule this comes as a complete surprise for western architects,” says Viktor Getmansky. “Russian architects, on the contrary, stick to the town-planning code but often know little about modern technology.”

An alliance seems the best option today. The ideology comes from the West while the elaboration and agreements are done by the Russians. Often there is also a third party – a Turkish company usually draws up the project. Turks can do it twice as fast and for half the price, compared to Russians. An example of such an alliance is Boris Levyant’s architecture bureau (presently called ABD Limited). When IKEA was erected in Moscow the western “box” was adapted by Russian architects.

The Capital Group holding is currently working on the major project of a shopping center in the “Capitals Town”. “The work is being done jointly by the holding itself and several western companies. In particular, the Ove Arup engineering company, and the construction part of the Capitals Town project is being carried out by the large U.S. company NBBJ, says PR-manager with the Capital Group Irina Ivanenko.

But Russian architects, in their own words, are not afraid of competition. Clients who have previously worked with western bureaus learn new working standards and approaches to concept development and formulating the required specifications. This only makes life easier for Russian architects, as they do not have to “invent” shopping centers.

Today, clients do not always understand that architecture affects the shopping center’s capitalization. While the seller is ruling the market, the question of what will happen to a shopping center in five years is never raised. But any trade is kept alive through constant renewal. According to statistics, shopping centers around the world are redeveloped once every 20 years, regardless of external reasons. In Russia it may happen even faster because here the market is growing and changing rapidly.