The new 4mywayoflife store introduces a new retail experience for the shopper. The shop's floorspace has been designed around the concept of 'zoned' areas that represent a different area of life (relaxation, the natural home, back care, healthy living, lifestyle, clothing, kids, daily essentials). The aim of the store's design was to provide an environment that would encourage customers to flow from one zoned area to another, enticing them to spend more time touching, smelling and even testing out some of the products.
Fagerhult Lighting have recently provided a mixture of their downlight and pendant range, in their flagship store. Being Britain's first all-encompassing natural lifestyle store, husband and wife duo Anne and Harry Brar wanted this, their second store to provide a multi-faceted experience and to put their company on the map. The store is located in the trendy area of Fulham, West London and is part of an existing mixed-use development island. For the design brief Fagerhult worked with Peter Knell of Taylor Ridgway, the midlands based design consultancy that conceived the pilot store in Leamington Spa.
As well as having to provide the general store lighting and enhance the product display areas, the lighting scheme had to highlight different 'zoned' areas of the store.
Situated in the heart of a mixed-use development the layout of the store and the lighting scheme had to be designed to incorporate the existing structure. The front of the store consists of two shop units, knocked through to form the space required for the natural home & daily essentials zone. The development also consists of occupied flats, which are situated directly above the front of the store. This has caused differing levels in ceiling height between the front and the rear of the store.
A tapered walkway joins the front to the rear of the store, which is twice the size of the front. In total the combined shop floor area measures 380m2.
Having previously worked with Fagerhult Lighting, a Swedish lighting company based in London, Peter knew about their range of energy efficient luminaires, "For the years that we have worked with Fagerhult, we have known them to produce energy efficient lighting using the t5 lamp technology. Being an environmentally active company this complimented 4mywayoflife's own practices to use natural materials".

Light task
For the shop's front, Fagerhult's circular recessed downlight luminaires were installed and a combination of high output metal halide pendants and swivel adjustable spotlights were positioned throughout the rear shop floor.
To provide a facade for the low ceiling height, Peter worked with Fagerhult to create an oval up stand. An oval shape was hollowed out of a new ceiling; drop suffits were positioned around the perimeter into which Fagerhult's Basic t5 batons were fixed.
The 14w Basic baton was then covered in honey coloured sleeves, to give a colour wash effect throughout the natural home zone.
In addition to this, the Pleiad downlight range were positioned throughout the front of the shop to provide general lighting for the window display, cash 'n' wrap area and the daily essentials zone.

Walking sideways
As shoppers enter the main shopfloor along the walkway, the shape of the wall makes an interesting curve similar to the shape of the spine. Rattan bags and wooden statues have been dotted alongside the wall where square alcoves housing ornaments for the home have been positioned above them. To brighten this area, Sidelight recessed luminaires were fitted directly beneath the alcoves. This solution to illuminate an otherwise dimly lit space worked because it effectively displayed low level products, helping to draw in the customers' attention and illuminate the path at the same time.
Arriving at the end of the walkway shoppers enter the main shopfloor to see the plethora of interesting and colourful items arranged in various assortments. In the centre of the floor, the display units have been arranged in a maze like structure whereby customers can saunter through and discover the remaining life zones.

Rays of light
With the ceiling being much higher than usual in this area, Peter Knell wanted a luminaire that would focus the customer's eyes towards a lower level, to be in tandem with the height of the store's front, "The contrast between ceiling heights was a factor that we wanted to modify with the lighting. The Dome pendant was ideal because it produced the high lighting levels required for such a spacious area." Shaped as its name suggests, the luminaire is made from grey enamelled aluminium comes complete with an acrylic shade and uses a single 42-watt compact fluorescent lamp to give an even spread of light.
The pendants were positioned to satisfy the general lighting and to work alongside the Art spotlights. These spotlights use a 70-watt metal halide lamp; the direct beam of light has been used to accentuate the displays units, ergonomic furniture such as the chairs and the spine curved walling around the perimeter. An ideal solution that offered flexibility for future developments.
To complete the lighting scheme, direct lighting was applied to the permanent-shelving units around the store. Basic t5 batons were placed along the inside of the shelf trimming, throwing the light back onto the items on display. The same effect was also created in the recessed clothing area with the Gondol wall washer.

4more
With the lighting complete, the store was opened in November of 2002. There are plans to expand the 4mywayoflife concept across the UK. This includes more sites around London and between two to three stores each year over the next six years, throughout key British cities.
Asked to comment on the look of the completed store, Anne Brar remarked, "We are happy with the results and the lighting has managed to create the type of effects we wanted to achieve. We want to see more products from the Fagerhult range, so that we can try out some alternative schemes in the new stores".

www.fagerhult.co.uk