High Museum of Art Gift Shop
Axios updated the gift shop in the High Museum of Art to create a more clean, bright, open, inviting, and vibrant space while staying true to the design aesthetic of the iconic museum.
Gallery
Here’s the story:
After successfully completing a renovation of the in- house café in the original Richard Meier building of the High Museum of Art, Axios was asked to update the existing gift shop in the Renzo Piano addition to the iconic museum.
The design objective for the gift shop was to improve merchandising by creating a fresh, white, and bright space that is much more visually open and inviting, while staying true to the general aesthetic and architecture of the buildings.
Capturing visitor’s attention and enticing them into the retail space was a primary design objective. The original cash wrap station dominated the entry to the shop and de- emphasized the merchandise. The cash wrap desk itself was showing over 15 years of wear and tear. A new, more compact, cash wrap was located a little further into the shop giving excellent sight lines throughout the L-shaped space and freed the entry zone to focus on impactful merchandising.
A curved cash wrap fabricated with white Corian is a sculptural centerpiece for the store. The precise straight and curvilinear geometries relate to the main building. White Corian was formed to these geometries with seamless joinery emphasizing the taught geometry and carved, monolithic qualities of the design.
A designated jewelry sales area with glass front drawers and display case is located in a discreet area of the shop. Wall display cases were updated with new lighting, trim, and the museum’s new branding colors
The 3-D model illustrates how the spaces and display areas are connected. Tall, wall mounted displays were added, modified, or remained as before to provide a consistent visual merchandizing appeal. Existing freestanding merchandising components were modified to reduce their height, enhancing interior sight lines with little to no impact on effective merchandizing. Axios designed new “low boy” merchandizing tables for specialty merchandise display.
General contractor: Emery & Associates/Hadyn Fusia