A study of how retail giant H&M can be kinder to the environment through space planning and interior design elements.
By Kay Magdaug
Brief: The EY Future Consumer Index shows consumers will increasingly support brands that align with values aimed at sustainability in the year ahead. Your client would like you to develop a store concept design that will show consumers their sustainable practices, initiatives, and values.
Time: You will have up to 3 hours to prepare your presentation. Presentations are to be kept to 3 min max. with 5 min of review each
Rules: Presentation can include the following: Images, Wording, Research, Space planning, Renders, FFE, Finishes.
H&M as a world renowned fast-fashion brand is held up in higher regard to revolutionize the industry's relationship with sustainability. As such, the new store design concept will show consumers their sustainable practices, initiatives, and values.
H&M Conscious was created to provide clients with environmentally friendly shopping choices. This clothing line features products that are made from recycled or sustainable sourced materials.
The new store design concept takes the H&M Conscious brand into the forefront of the design. The store will highlight, through space planning and interior architecture, the Conscious ideology of educating, promoting, and producing results regarding sustainability.
Envisioned as a compact store with less square footage than an average H&M retail store, there will be less carbon footprint for merchandise, partners, and clients. Lockers will be at the front line of the stores for online order pick-up, providing quick turnover of sales and less carbon footprint for clients. Technology will be used abundantly as shopping and marketing tools, and as education center to explain further the H&M Conscious effort. The main feature of the store design will be the Take-Back-Program area which constitutes significant square footage. Here, H&M collects unwanted clothes or textiles for recycling or upcycling, and offers repairs and rehabilitation of old clothing.
Recycled and sustainable building materials will be an integral part of the physical store. Using natural materials that is sturdy and sustainable sourced. Innovative and creative materials will also take center stage, made from recycled textile tubes, recycled textile scraps, and even recycled paper from H&M paper bags.
