Retail & Consumer Experience

Costa Coffee

Holt Renfrew The Studio

JIDU ROBOVERSE Sanlitun Experience Center

NBA Store Sydney

NBA Store Melbourne

NBA Store Berlin

Assembly Food Hall

Honor Life Store

TOCA Social

Real Agave

Fenway Center

Sixty Vines at Assembly Food Hall

NBA Store Paris

NBA Store London

Porsche Arboretum

Studio M

100 Stockton

Sephora @ Pitt Street

Anta Shanghai Flagship

Holt Renfrew Facade Design

Samsung 2.0

Saks Fifth Avenue Flagship

Cadillac House

Squint Eyewear

Far Eastern Group A13 Department Store

Lupita’s Corner

Harrods Technology Department

Retail Design for Better Consumer and Employee Experiences

Elevating the Retail Experience: 4 Lessons From Airport Lounge Design

Using Experience Strategy to Design What People Truly Want

What Makes a Great Retail Experience? Community, Connection, and Exhibition

Magnetizing People & Places Through the Power of Brand

Why Brand Fleets Are Key to Creating an Engaging, Multiplatform Experience

Implementing Sustainable Design Strategies in the Retail Environment

China’s Honor Life Store Shows How Retail Design Acts as a Cultural and Brand Lens

Hybrid Retail: 6 Principles for Meaningful Customer Engagement

The Case for Mass Timber: How First United Bank Is Creating a More Sustainable Future

What the Workplace Sector Can Learn From Retail’s 20+ Years of Designing Hybrid Experiences

Adaptive Reuse Brings New Vibrancy to Silicon Valley’s State Street Market

Design Forecast 2022: Retail

Trends Shaping the Future of Mixed Use and Retail Centers

Unlocking What’s Next for Consumer Experiences
In the quest for loyalty, retailers will increasingly design their stores to be hubs for social connection and community engagement.
Successful retailers will create a symbiotic relationship with communities, providing workshops and classes, hosting talks, or facilitating communal gatherings. Spaces that double as vibrant hubs that nurture social connection and collective growth can attract new customers and further brand loyalty, elevating local citizens in the process.
As consumers seek more purposeful brands, brands will seek more purposeful solutions.
Brands incorporating environmentally-friendly practices will employ design and implementation strategies that embrace and elevate existing spaces. Creative retail design strategies — minimizing architectural interventions, giving new life to existing elements, and creating flexible and resilient systems — help retailers create an authentic sense of place.
CX is critical, but EX will unlock meaningful brand connections.
Brands have long recognized and invested in the importance of CX — the consumer experience — to drive relevance and resonance with customers. Moving forward, they will need to adopt a higher level of care in their EX — the employee experience. Investments in training, education, and employee space will attract and retain retail employees and create a level of engagement that extends through to customers.
Brands are unlearning convention to make places more inclusive.
Brands are showing customers they understand one size does not fit all and that identities are plural in nature. Retailers are celebrating individuality and diversity with spaces designed to represent gender fluidity. They are offering products and services catering to neurodiversity and disability challenges. And they are acknowledging the important nuances of race, culture, size, and age — all to help cast aside stereotypes.


Lara Marrero

Aaron Birney

The Cadillac City Experience Center in Zurich is the Brand’s First Lifestyle Installation in Europe

Gensler Named #1 on VMSD’s List of Top Retail Design Firms for 2023

How High Streets Can Be Transformed Into Community-Centric Destinations

The Gensler-Designed NBA Store Berlin Creates a 360 Product and Brand Experience

Building Design Ranked Gensler the #1 Firm on Its 2023 World Architecture 100 Survey

Gensler’s Lara Marrero Is Recognized Among RETHINK Retail’s Top Retail Influencers of 2023

Why Leaning Into the Customer Experience Is the Key Driver of Success for Retailers

Inside Retail Asia Spotlights Richard Chang’s Career in Retail Architecture at Gensler

TOCA Social Wins 2022 Creative Retail Award for Best Bar and Restaurant Design

The Design Behind Real Agave — “The New Place Trending in Houston”


Gensler Partnered with theMART to Create a New Experience for Chicago’s Design Community

Why Brick-and-Mortar Retail Should Consider Moving Into Mixed-Use Developments

Global Retail Leader Lara Marrero on How Agility is Critical in Store Design
