There is a tremendous contrast between the space in canal street and 5th avenue.
While canal street’s stores are tightly jammed together, the stores in 5th avenue are spread put from one other, and sometimes even have their own street. When designing our stores for this project we considered the idea of placing our store between an intersecting street, where both canal and 5th avenue met. We thought it would be playful and interesting to play to have that dynamic. A significant detail that we’ve notice in canal street, was that the title of one of the store fronts did not match the actual store. It was quit humorous that the store selling “luxury watches” and cheap T-shirt was titled “Frozen yogurt”. When we asked the store owner about the mistake, he mumbled some words that didn’t really make sense, then asked me if I was going to buy anything. We incorporated the idea of a mix match title into our design, where the store’s name does not match the actual store, nor does some of the labels match the actual product.
When designing the shelves/display system for our store we wanted a mechanism that was versatile in its design and that juxtaposed the two display methods of both locations.
During our time in 5th avenue we’ve observed that glass was recurring motif, which symbolized luxury and wealth. All the store fronts had glass windows, and even the products had were sometimes imprisoned on glass cases or shelves. Consequently, in our design, we decided to use plastic sheet protectors for the store window and shelve fronts. This was Ironic because we were using plastic to denote wealth and luxury, while we should have used glass. But at the same time the plastic paralleled the cheap and reduced quality of the polyester products in canal street. The products in 5th avenue were thoughtful placed, with space in mind. You might see a rack with only a few pieces on it, or a store front displaying a single handbag. The whole design aesthetic was very minimal. This minimalism created a sense of exclusivity which also denotes luxury. In contrast to this, the products in canal street were tightly jammed together, leaving not a single gap.
