Five Awards Have Gascoigne Seeing RED

Five Awards Have Gascoigne Seeing RED

New Zealand’s top retail architect Mark Gascoigne and his team at Studio Gascoigne are seeing RED after winning five awards at the Retail Design Awards for 2014.

The prestigious RED Awards are given to the top retail designers for works undertaken in the 2013/14 year and Studio Gascoigne scooped the pool, taking the biggest share of the awards for only four projects entered.

Categories won by the Studio Gascoigne team were:

- Home Award Winner: Euroglass Showroom, Parnell, Auckland

- Furniture, Lighting & Hardware Division Award 2014: Euroglass Showroom, Parnell, Auckland

- Accessories Division Award 2014: Number One Shoes, Albany

- Apparel Division Awards 2014: Glassons/Hallensteins Flagship. Wellington

- Lighting Awards 2014: Glassons/Hallensteins Flagship. Wellington

“It is great to get back on the podium this year,” said Gascoigne, “especially for the Glassons/Hallensteins flagship store, a huge design and architectural project with many challenges.

“Our clients wanted an exciting departure from their previous format to keep ahead of their competition.

“We believe that this store is a game-changer for affordable fashion in New Zealand in that it offers an exciting “Superstore” environment of a type previously only available to shoppers in Europe.

“It is great that both the client and my team have been rewarded for that bravery,” he said.

The two awards for the Euroglass Showroom design, including the overall “Home Division”, were satisfying for very different reasons, this time the Gascoigne team striving to create a whole new type of sales space which looks more like an upmarket apartment than a showroom.

“Obviously, glass is the hero product here, but we didn't want the space looking like a glasshouse. Instead the whole space looks like a contemporary apartment which uses glass in a number of exciting and unusual ways.

“Glass is used not only for windows and mirrors but also for balustrades, white-boards, doors, room dividers, cladding, fireplace, marble-like walls, black bricks, cupboard fronts and even to provide an illuminated kitchen splash-back.

“Cutting edge technology allowed us to use graphics printed directly into the glass. Windows and balustrades have been re-glazed with high performance glass allowing customers to view this in use.

“We believe this is the first time that a glass sales office has presented glass in such an innovative way anywhere in the world,” he said.

The Gascoigne team’s makeover for New Zealand’s largest footwear retailer Number One Shoes also won a RED award. The retailer to demonstrate its shifting focus toward higher quality and more fashion-orientated product in order to win new customers and to increase the average sale. But the brief (and budget) did not allow for a full re-fit, had to consist of little or no building work and be installed without closing the store.

“We designed a mainly “pop-up” fitout model suitable for off-site mass production and easy roll-out,” said Gascoigne.

The awards cap off a huge year for Mark Gascoigne, with two more finalist projects in the upcoming Best Awards and his appearances as a judge on The Block NZ making him a household name in the DIY community.

“It is incredible how many friends, colleagues and clients have seen me on the show and have an opinion on the results.

“It makes me very conscious how hard it is to win an aesthetic based competition – even more reason to be excited about our RED Awards win,” he said.

(Ends)

© Scoop Media