Andrews is a Canadian womenswear retailer with a sweeping location at the Bayview Village Shopping Centre. The mall in uptown Toronto hails from the 1960s back when smaller commercial complexes began sprouting up in residential neighborhoods. Local studio Odami outfitted the 5,500-square-foot site for Andrews with this community aspect in mind. Using a sleek sand-toned color scheme and interlocking volumes, Odami creates a boutique retail environment that defies the typical overwhelming, hulking presence of mall department stores.
The designers opted for an open floorplan dominated by a subdued tan hue. On the walls, upholstered panels feature a ripped fabric to help create a soft interior. It falls alongside speckled porcelain flooring that still lies within the sand-tone color family. Other materials like leather, microcement, and Calcutta rosenoir marble add to these hues while giving depth and layers to the space. The neutral background allows the clothing to draw the eye instead.
The open floor is given flow through the incorporation of overlapping and intersecting volumes. At times the slabs act as seating, plinths become display stands, and planes work as tables. While the multipurpose elements choreograph the space, they also help the store feel boutique and human-scaled due to the low-to-the-ground design. Mixing materials, from sandy microcement to leather, these custom-built, overlapping compositions add an elegant moment of play.
Surrounding the volumes is a strategic approach to lighting. As a retail space within a shopping center, natural light is usually scarce, easily lending the interior a stuffy quality. The same is true for Andrews but only insofar as its lack of windows. Odami injects a tranquil and sleek sense of place by slotting floor-to-ceiling light panels along the walls for ambience. Elsewhere light panels are wrapped in perforated stainless steel to create intriguing lighting as well as shelving options, adding to the gridded, box-like store.
More storage hangs down from brushed satin nickel bars. They hang on the walls to create clothing racks but also swoop down from the ceiling in front of the light panels for greater effect. Again, the design, while creating a distinct sense of place, emphasizes the display of clothing.
Odami reconstructed the window displays which acts as the only glimpse out beyond the retail space. The designers ensured the windows continue the rich, tone-on-tone palette of the interior and created sightlines into the store to open the space. The window display is finished with a final light panel to clue passersby in on the design language waiting within.