RIBA hits the shops with the Regent Street Windows Project

Architects and retailers have been holding hands for quite some time. Global high concept stores have firmly heightened our expectations of a retail experience, seducing us with luscious interiors and striking exteriors that seek to enhance the brand. Flagship stores are arguably an architect’s playground to explore new technologies. Notable collaborations include Thomas Heatherwick’s steel ribbons in bright orange for Longchamp in New York, Toyo Ito’s flagship store for Tod’s in Tokyo which mirrors the trees on Omotesando, and Herzog & de Meuron’s diamond patchwork steel and glass design for Prada further down the same Tokyo boulevard of fashion.

Currently along Regent Street in London, RIBA is giving 10 emerging and established architecture practices the opportunity to develop window installations, for the second year running, this time in response to the theme 'Cities of Tomorrow'. The result has been an incubator for ideas on a street that sees 1 million visitors every week. 

Highlights include Levi's store, where Ian McChesney has drawn on the brand's Water<Less line of jeans, which uses significantly less water in the finishing process, and spread a series of these eco-jeans taught on a tensile structure, making a window into the future of fashion.

At Hoss Intropia, Glowacka Rennie Architects have constructed a 3D screen made from one sheet of aluminium that has been manipulated to form nifty shelves and pockets for clothes and shoes to be displayed. Duggan Morris has considered a future public realm with a series of intricate models made from perspex and Ferrari F1 components including a crank shaft, piston, exhaust and an engine valve. According to Duggan Morris’s proposal, external space will be utilised for sun and water catchers and intelligent engineering will address the city’s density.

DSDHA and students at London Metropolitan University have responded to Banana Republic’s proximity to nearby Soho. The 1854 outbreak of cholera in Soho and resulting investigations led to a revolution in urban development. The team are proposing a new Urban Constitution for an imagined 'Free State of Soho', using similar mapping methodologies to those used in 1854.

Once matched to a retailer, the appointed architects faced a relatively tight deadline with a four-month concept to delivery process, culminating in an overnight install on Regent Street. Agnieszka Glowacka of Glowacka Rennie Architects found the project provided an excellent context to develop prototypes and test-bed concepts. Annie Walker of Regent Street Association described the project as one of the most innovative events that the association hosts and is keen for retailers to think outside the box. Or perhaps more aptly, to think beyond the window. 

Rachel Borchard is a member of Black Country Atelier