Venice Designer Juggles Art and Commerce With Freeform Designs
Giorgio Borruso could be the closest thing retail architects have to a rock star. This year, the Venice, Calif.–based architect has taken almost all of the top honors for store design.
Yet Borruso’s imaginative designs, which call for details such as cocoon-shaped dressing rooms and eye-shaped fixtures, have not relegated the 37-year-old architect to a career of critical praise from a measured distance. Rather, his designs are embraced by high-profile retailers.
In September, international sportswear and footwear retailer Fila debuted a 4,000-square-foot flagship store in New York designed by Borruso. It’s going to be the model for each new Fila store built around the globe.
Borruso has built more than six boutiques for Italian sportswear retailer Fornarina, including one in Las Vegas, which earned him the 2005 Store of the Year award by the Institute of Store Planners, one of the preeminent organizations for retail architects in North America.
Borruso seems to be everywhere.
His work is found in Costa Mesa, Calif., at the South Coast Plaza store of Orange County– based contemporary label Paul Frank Industries; showrooms for the Italian kitchen-design company Snaidero; and at some boutiques of Fornarina’s rival, the Italian denim brand Miss Sixty.
Borruso’s new angle for Miss Sixty has a mod/futuristic tone, as seen in the Miss Sixty stores in South Coast Plaza and the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, Calif. His ubiquity seemed to foster a familiarity that has bred appreciation among his fellow retail architects. They voted him 2005 Designer of the Year in Display and Design Ideas magazine.
The popular acclaim and corporate investments have led Russell Sway, international president of the Institute of Store Planners, to say that Borruso could be one of the leaders in a new wave of retail architecture in the United States.
Demand for malls has reached a saturation point, according to Sway. Fewer than 10 traditional, regional shopping malls have opened in the United States in 2005, based on surveys conducted by the New York–based International Council of Shopping Centers.
Instead, developers recently have opted to build smaller lifestyle centers, which often call for different looks from store architects, no matter if a prospective tenant is a national chain or an independent boutique. “They’re giving people multiple choices here,” Sway said. “Developers and consumers want something unique, and Giorgio has been on the leading edge of this.”
Borruso’s leading edge might be what Sway calls organic design—a design movement characterized by freeform shapes. (A recent well-known example of organic design is Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.) Borruso said he does nothing more than try to capture the identity of his client, showcase the product in a flattering, imaginative light, and lure the public with architectural shapes not often seen in a store.
For the Miss Sixty store in South Coast Plaza, the architect took the 1960s-style geometric shapes used in previous Miss Sixty stores and artfully placed them around the store. He draws customers to the back of the store with cocoon-shaped dressing rooms covered with opaque white spandex, which reveals the silhouettes of the women inside trying on clothes.
The Paul Frank store in South Coast Plaza relies on simple colors and architectural shapes reminiscent of ocean waves and skateboard ramps.
It’s one of the top five Paul Frank stores in sales, said Ryan Heuser, co-founder of Paul Frank Industries. The store’s playful architecture also sets a tone to which the retailer aspires.
“He understands how to design and lay out product in a retail space, which gives the sales needed to make a profit,” Heuser said.
“But he also understands not to make the store too commercial. That is an artful compromise.
Because we want to tell our customers that Paul Frank Industries is your friend; we’re not out to scheme on you.”
Intriguing environments that balance public space while flexing consumer imagination should be the future of retail design, Borruso said. “It’s having an experience. Being able to smell and touch the store. Otherwise, the consumer can stay at home and buy clothes through their computers.”
