It’s not every day that a company is awarded by two award-giving bodies in the same year for the same thing: design excellence. But that’s exactly what Landmark Corporation recently achieved for its new Landmark Supermarket, which opened in May last year at TriNoma Mall in Quezon City.
Landmark Supermarket was awarded Store of the Year in the supermarket/grocery category by the A.R.E. Design Awards, and won first place in the supermarket category of the ISP/VM+SD International Store Awards. ARE is the Association of Retail Environments, which is composed of retail and related companies known for their cutting-edge innovation and service; ISP/VM+SD is the Institute of Store Planners, and the Visual Merchandising + Store Design (VMSD) magazine, a leading publication for retail designers and store display professionals since 1922.
Landmark Supermarket at TriNoma Mall was designed by the firm Hugh A. Boyd Associates of New Jersey. Architect Boyd is an award-winning urban planner and designer specializing in the design and development of public projects. He is a well-known figure in retail design and has worked on the development of public markets across the United States.
Landmark assistant to the executive vice president Kenneth Keng says that when Landmark was being planned, his father Teddy Keng interviewed designers from the US, Japan and Europe and finally settled on Hugh Boyd Associates.
“They said, ‘You have to take the design to the next level.’ At the start we were thinking that those supermarkets in Hong Kong like City Super and in Thailand look nice, but the architects said, ‘You can do better than that; let’s make yours the best supermarket in the Philippines.’ Dad said, ‘No, let’s make it the best supermarket in the world!’”
Kenneth says that every time he and his father were abroad they would check out the latest and biggest supermarkets in China, the US and Europe. They saw some impressive ones and they knew that they had to top all of these “especially when we got it into our heads to be the best in the world.”
And that’s exactly what they did.
So what makes Landmark the best designed supermarket in the world? For starters, there’s movement in the design — it’s not static, it’s not boring — and a lot of visual elements that contribute to the feeling that the sometimes-stressful task of buying groceries for the next few weeks is going to be pleasant and uncomplicated.
“You can see the minute you walk in that’s it’s a world apart from anything else that we have here,” says Kenneth. “Dad especially wanted to make sure that we didn’t cut any costs in the construction, that we would spend it all on the customers. We looked at a lot of the local competition and we figured we could do a lot better and I think we did.”
Being an anchor for TriNoma Mall, Landmark Supermarket is large at 10,000 square meters, twice the size of its branch in Makati, which opened 20 years ago, while Landmark Department Store, which can be accessed from the supermarket, measures about 15,000 square meters at every level.
Kenneth says that access was an important aspect of the design. They wanted to make it convenient for customers to be able to go in no matter where they were coming from. The supermarket and food court can be accessed via three street-level entrances, the department store lobby, and elevators from the Mindanao Ave. parking building.
Distinctive elements of the design include spherical cutouts suspended from the dark-colored ceiling, which reflect the way the produce is arranged on refrigerators, and the oval pods near the entrances to the supermarket that store about 900 shopping carts. Another pod inside is reserved for the wine and alcohol section — a different take from existing supermarkets that usually designate a corner of the store for this.
The design gives a feeling of spaciousness despite the cavernous nature of the space, thanks to the light colors and materials used, including fiberglass-reinforced gypsum shapes, acrylic and metal shelves.
As for the layout, Kenneth says, “Nowadays there’s a lot of new ideas on how to arrange your grocery. Our layout is very up to date. There’s a real science behind it. We looked at time-motion studies and a lot of research. There are a lot of designers that can make something pretty, but to make something work in a retail environment is very difficult and takes a lot of experience.”
Landmark shoppers begin in the produce section where displays are curving, a shape echoed in the meats section as well, where the walls play on fresh colors and graphics.
Another great element that adds to the overall design experience of the supermarket is the graphic design by Leslie Evans of Leslie Evans Design in Maine, while the murals were designed by Susan Roberts of Georgia and hand-painted by the store’s in-house artists.
The color palette and the murals are consistent in both the supermarket and the adjacent food court, which has a floor space of about 4,700 square meters. Here, you won’t find ordinary plastic chairs typical of fast foods. Instead you have warm polypropylene chairs with metal legs and MDF tables. The displays of food vendors are also uniform and subdued — no screaming neon logos — which make for a cohesive design statement.
Kenneth says that the food court and supermarket, as well as the department store, are environment friendly in that their designs are energy efficient. Lighting systems keep the electric costs down, while the air-conditioning system is separate from the mall, so that when TriNoma recently had problems with the air-con, Landmark was not affected.
“In terms of efficiencies, the design is very green. It’s not just a green issue, it’s also a cost question. That’s another reason we’re upgrading our Makati branch. We found that our energy savings here are so huge. In cooling systems alone, in the last five years you’re looking at a 75-percent jump in efficiency. It’s nice to do it for the planet, but also we do it for our overhead.
“With our TriNoma branch we were happy to have the space to play around with and are able to give the customers a lot of elbow room,” he says.
Landmark Supermarket proves that a well-designed supermarket does make for happy customers.
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Landmark Supermarket at TriNoma Mall is open from Sunday to Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.