IIDA Perspective - Spring 2018 - 33

design of the store was not technology," Ratti says. "Rather,
our desire to put forward the idea of the supermarket
as a meeting place-almost like an old open-air market.
Technology was a means to achieve this objective."

Photo by: (top) Daniele Iodice; Lars Kruger

A Cleanup on Every Aisle
The ultimate goal of Ratti's design was to create an
experience that encourages shoppers to linger-and if they
don't have the time, to make it convenient enough for them
to get in, get what they need, and get out.
To that end, food retailers and designers must look at
shifting shopping habits.
"People are buying around occasions rather than just
stocking up for the foreseeable future," says Michelle DuPrat, strategy director and co-founder of Household, a brand
and experience agency based in London, England.
Rather than shopping for enough food to last a week
or two, patrons are starting to visit the grocery store a
few times a week-or even a day. Sixty-five percent of
Britons, for example, now "regularly or occasionally" stop
by the supermarket more than once a day, according to the
Waitrose Food and Drink Report for 2017-18.
This new consumer mindset means stores and their
designers must reimagine what the layout of a store should
really be.
"[The new grocery store] should not be built around
departments, like the produce department, or boring aisle
after aisle in the middle of the store but instead around meal
occasions, like breakfast, lunch, and dinner," Lempert says.
"This puts the consumer's needs first, rather than forcing the
consumer to walk up and down aisles."
At Coop Italia's Supermarket of the Future, for example,

foods made from the same ingredients-such as fresh
tomatoes and canned tomatoes-are grouped together. And
at supermarket chain Mariano's, owned by Cincinnati, Ohio,
USA-based The Kroger Co., the meat counter sits next to a
grill so that customers can make their selection and have it
cooked on the spot to their specifications.
It's a necessary shake-up, says Brandon Avery, creative
managing director, FRCH Design Worldwide, Cincinnati.
He says designers need to rethink the best uses for valuable
in-store real estate and physical space in the center of the
store. In most stores these aisles are often stocked with
staple household items that consumers can easily order
online, he says. "Grocery retailers need that foot traffic; they
need more people to shop that part of the store," Avery says.
"Shoppers will then be more excited to shop the physical
store because the product offering and experience could be
new and fresh."
FRCH began rethinking the center in its grocery store
designs when Kroger hired the firm to help design its nowclosed experimental Main & Vine store in Gig Harbor,
Washington, USA. Kroger wanted to make Main & Vine
its version of a local grocer or a Whole Foods-a store that

Coop Italia's
Supermarket
of the Future in
Milan, Italy, uses
technology to
give shoppers
instant
information
about products.

The physical design
of supermarkets has never
been as important as it is
in the digital era." -Carlo Ratti
spring 2018

perspective

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Spring 2018