Interiors brand Habitat has unveiled its new look £1.5m flagship store in London’s Tottenham Court Road. With its last major refurbishment in 2005, the 25,000 sq ft store, Habitat’s largest in the UK, has been completely re-designed by Habitat’s in-house design team led by creative director, Polly Dickens, and creative manager, Graham Copeland. Briefed to create an immersive brand experience for customers, the new store aims to combine an inspirational in-store environment with digital access points to drive awareness of the recently upgraded habitat.co.uk.

Designed completely in-house, the project was kept with the Habitat design team to stay true to the brands design aesthetic. The two storey renovation, which has taken just under a year to complete, features a new simplified layout and modern interior design scheme that strips the building back to its original architectural framework. A streamlined glass central staircase, bespoke outline fixtures designed in-house and a monochrome scheme with dark wood floors throughout aims to enhance the feeling of light and space in the store as well highlighting the signature bold and bright colour palette Habitat uses in its collections. Traditional enclosed window displays have also been dispensed with in favour of open vignettes that allow shoppers to view the full store from street level.

Interactive touch screens throughout the store now link directly to habitat.co.uk to allow customers’ access to in-depth product information and the full Habitat collection online including finish options and models not shown in store. Customers will also be able to browse branded editorial content including the popular #HabitatVoyeur campaign. A statement video wall at the entrance of the store also showcases Habitat’s online content with in-house designed creatives, behind the scenes films and specially commissioned artworks.

On the shop floor, the ground level features a new expansive textiles section showcasing the full range of hand crafted textiles alongside a new mirrored showcase pop up area that will house interior design installations, events and customer workshops. Statement blue, clutter free cash desks run throughout the store into the basement level which includes a new Habitat Fitted Kitchen studio, cookshop, gallery space, expanded furniture and upholstery section and lighting department.

“We wanted to create a flagship that represents our brand today, demonstrating how significantly we’ve moved Habitat on creatively over the last five years,” comments Clare Askem, MD.

“The new store now truly reflects what we stand for, designed in-house by our London studio to embody our values of good, fun design that is unexpected and forward thinking. It’s very different to the Habitat that you’ve seen before and has been an opportunity to re-affirm our identity on Tottenham Court Road as a design brand. There are no gimmicks or distractions here - we’re letting the designs speak for themselves - in terms of quality and price point - in a new store environment where simplicity is key. I think we’ve really successfully brought together both online and offline strands of the business understanding how our customers are shopping today and we’ve set a benchmark for how we plan to evolve the brand going forward combining offline and online retail. For me, Tottenham Court Road is the perfect embodiment of this future multi-channel vision and marks a really exciting new chapter in the Habitat story.”

(Source: Furniture News  Author: Victoria Noakes)