Readings in the running for store design award

Independent bookselling chain Readings is a finalist for the Customer Experience Store Design Award, as part of Inside Retail’s 2017 Retailer Awards.

Readings was selected for the design of its two new shops, Readings Doncaster and Readings Kids. The other finalists in the category are Suncorp, Dan Murphy’s, Supré and Kinpin Crown.

On the Readings blog, the store elaborates on the design of the two stores. Working with Melbourne architecture firm Nest, the Doncaster store is designed to ‘capture the feel of an open book by using curved arches and curved wooden slats in the entryway, and the interior further highlights this aesthetic with arched bookshelves lining the walls’. The interior bookshelves also have rolling ladders, and the store has two soundproofed ‘reading nooks’ for customers to sample books.

The Readings Kids store aims to ‘capture the feel of the outdoors while at the same time highlighting everything that is wonderful about children’s literature’. It features a move-able tiered ‘hill’, custom shelving, and a mural hand-painted onto one entire wall by local artist, illustrator and author Marc Martin, featuring ‘a range of animals, trees and a twisting, turning river’.

The winners of the Retailer Awards will be announced on 30 March at the Inside Retail Gala Dinner in Sydney. For more information about the awards, click here.

Category: Local news