spar robindale
johannesburg, gauteng
completed 2020
The manager of SPAR Robindale approached GASS with the aim of making the store’s presence more prominent in the Robindale Corner centre in addition to giving the internal spaces of the store a fresh and modern face lift. While the store is made up of the front of house shop floor, the back of house kitchens/ preparation areas and a mezzanine office level, the project scope of works was limited to the front of house areas.
One of the issues that the existing store faces is that it has little street frontage except for the coffee shop it operates at its entrance. The existing entrance is mainly hidden from view with the line of the shop entrance being deeply recessed behind the current trolley bay and set at a diagonal angle to the centre’s current building footprint. The proposal looked at over coming this by bringing the existing shop line out, moving the trolley bay position and painting the existing façade with the colours of SPAR to further highlight the store’s presence.
Another issue the store faced due to this lack of frontage, was that the internal spaces received very little natural light. The proposal therefore, looked at introducing a clerestory window above the fresh produce fridges along the eastern edge of the store facing the centre’s parking lot.
The proposed internal layout looks at introducing the concept of a food market feel with the demarcating of ‘sub stores’ within the larger store. The newly proposed finishes and shop fitted items also lend themselves to this feel with natural timber elements being introduced into the store as well as black vinyl hand drawn marketing.