Project Overview

The new Tax & Duty Free retail environment for GBR-Heinemann at Sydney’s International Airport is the largest, stand-alone tax and duty free store in the world. It also brings curated, local products to international travellers.

Its scale required skilled planning and specialist retail design to attract and retain passengers, giving them an empowering retail experience by easing their anxiety of finding their way through the airport terminal, reaching the departure gates on time, juggling luggage, finding product types and brands easily and enjoying a unique and memorable airport shopping experience.

Creating a new ‘signature’ Heinemann design framework, outside of traditional duty free, ensured this store developed its own character and personality to engage through its design, ambiance and unique experiences.

The project involved a stakeholder team including Heinemann, Sydney Airport Corporation and various authorities, focussed on creating a new global benchmark for Heinemann, within tight timeframes and strict regulatory requirements.

Central to the design team’s ethos and as the project progressed, to all stakeholders, was the core focus on understanding and designing to the unique requirements of a travelling customer. Their pressures, needs and mindsets are vastly different to a regular shopping centre shopper.

Project Commissioner

Heinemann Asia Pacific

Project Creator

Geyer

Team

Mark Talbot
Timothy Giles
Liam Higginbotham
Lisa James
Louise Everitt
Ivana Stemitsiotis
Louise Mackrill
Karen Garrett
Caitlin Mills-Sheehy

Project Brief

Heinemann’s brief was to set a new precedent for their business worldwide, positioning the brand as the leading Duty Free store and business globally. At the same time, they wanted to ensure their foray into the Australian market was resoundingly successful so as to guarantee their further penetration into this market.
The brief required a unified store across the vast space, at the same time creating a sense of calm and inspiring place for passengers, while displaying the latest in modern retail and visual merchandising.
It was also to showcase extensive product ranges including liquor, confectionery, tobacco, fine foods, food/beverage, technology, perfumes, cosmetics, fashion and accessories, including celebrating local products. It was to create a retail experience that was to be ‘uniquely Sydney’ and globally relevant and act as an approach for Tax and Duty free stores internationally.
In addition to creating a unique experience, it required premium spaces and prestige forms to support critical product and brand adjacencies, to ensure Heinemann would attract their targeted brands.
An additional briefing layer came from Sydney Airport Corporation’s own brief which was to help to transform Sydney Airport’s duty free offering to a competitive world stage in airport retailing.

Project Innovation/Need

A signature feature within each Heinemann store globally is the collaboration with a leading local design practice to create a unique identity known as ‘the Regionals’. In this case, our design approach has been to celebrate the ‘collective identities of Sydney’. It is used as an inspiring narrative to challenge traditional approaches and create a unique duty free shopping experience.

This has realised Heinemann’s request to reflect what makes Sydney different and how this space will be identifiable from duty free stores around the world.

The design language was adjusted to define each product category by a ‘Sydney sense’ such as ‘Balmoral Beach’, a sophisticated and chic expression for the Beauty Zone embodied in a fresh and aspirational palette. Alexandria was the inspiration for the Food and Local Food area utilizing vibrant, warehouse chic palette and forms.

These different ‘Sydney senses’ help to identify different product types and create zones that break up the vast space into more human scale and intuitively navigable spaces.

Abstract, sculptural reference to the essence of Sydney forms a memorable image for departing passengers and displays unique Australian products that are not available in other ‘traditional’ category areas.

Design Challenge

The design challenge was three faced requiring a carefully crafted framework; 1-establishing insightful understanding and intelligent response to the pressure points and needs of departing travellers, 2-the complex needs of global and local brands in needing specific adjacencies, minute detail to shelf space and product locations and 3-the low risk, high value commercial outcome and brand leverage requirements for Heinemann on the world stage.

Added to this was Heinemann’s new entry into Australia and the need for us to guide them through authorities requirements, compliances, new materials and finishes and supply chain.

The design created easy customer navigation using strong sight lines and planning to draw them through the spaces providing references to carefully located FID monitors, long clear sightlines towards gates, and quickly identifiable product category and brand signage and aisles wide enough for passengers and their luggage. Features including bespoke ceiling treatments and fixturing are located according to sight lines and wayfinding to product and service points. This helps customers navigate and experience changes in different product categories. In addition, ceiling treatments focus on curvature (nod to the organic meandering Sydney harbour) at the same time connecting departments and creating a successful shopping atmosphere.

Sustainability

A key sustainability initiative for us was to educate our large international client on relevant Australian practices regarding the specification of local products and manufacturing, helping to reduce the need for shipping products from overseas.

Where possible we matched and specified materials and finishes translating from international to local products and finishes.

The use of the “Sydney first - City of Sense”, helped us to create a sense of ‘local’ for the client who supported using local when possible.

Environmentally-friendly LED lighting was specified across all the environments.

We also hosted our client by providing work space in our studio to minimise travel to and from the airport, focussing on 1:1 face to face communications and to activate ongoing collaboration. This also meant our international client could learn more quickly about the local market and Australian cultural and retail nuances to optimise their decision making and minimise risks.

We designed details to fixtures and specified materials for their safety characteristics, resilience and maintenance benefits, bearing in mind wear and tear from cleaning equipment and inconsistent cleaning regimes.

Interior Design - Retail

This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors, with consideration given to space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes and aesthetic presentation. Consideration given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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