If the Etruscans and Ancient Romans had not thought up the atrium, modern marketers would have had to do it anyway. This essential structural element proves that architecture really can assist commerce successfully. One must know how to use the atrium properly, however, and how to take advantage of its many splendid qualities.
The architecture of shopping centers is becoming ever more sophisticated. In fact, it has to do so – in order to stay competitive, any developer must present the market with original architectural solutions. The practical and simple atrium, however, remains one of the finest instruments of architectural individuality. “As a rule, the use of an atrium is reasonable, if a project’s design concepts initially establish the individuality of the architecture. Today, the atrium fulfills so many functional requirements, relying of course on sources of supplementary lighting and skylights. Additionally, the atrium is an extremely important informational-navigational point,” says the director of marketing and development for the producer of retail and entertainment complexes, the ADG Group, Leonid Rosenthal. Many experts agree with him. “Atriums are well-suited to assisting in the realization of the architectural goals of any shopping center,” confirms vice president of development strategy for Blackwood, Mikhail Gets.
Interestingly, market players see an especially strong interest for retail atriums in Russia particularly. “Here the atrium is used very often as a central concept for a shopping center, as it is inevitably presents itself as a very attractive point in the building. The other parts of the shopping center can be made to supplement it, in a sense. In Europe, one often finds an entirely different situation. The majority of shopping centers there are simply functionally constructed properties made from the simplest materials,” says Leonid Rosenthal.
Form Follows Function
According to Mikhail Gets, the atrium zone serves three generally accepted basic functions. First of all, it can play a role in organized activities. “In such a zone, a podium or dais can easily be set up and various promotional activities can be performed. Small areas for non-standard advertising can be maintained, which, besides their main function, can also serve design and formational purposes,” observes the expert.
The second advantage of an atrium zone is commercial. It is in such place that the cafes, restaurants, or shops based on impulse purchases are most often based. The atrium zone is also used as an area for relaxation and rest, with fountains and benches for the enjoyment of consumers. The third essential function of the atrium is technical, that is, as a place to aid the customer in his navigation of the shopping center. Often the atrium is used by the customer as a compass or a guide. As a rule, the atrium is placed across from the shopping center’s main entrance, accommodating the streams of visitors leaving and entering the facility. Logically, this is where the information desks or kiosks are most suitable. Here printed materials are best distributed, including catalogues or magazines or travel guides. The shopping center itself may choose to publish a certain quantity of these materials, in order to help customers feel taken care of and encourage their loyalty.
Sales Experience
The atrium is a parade zone, an orientation zone, and a recreation zone all at once. But which goods are best sold in such an area? “In the first place, everything depends on the layout of the shopping center. The atrium is often the very face of the facility, the consolidation point which appropriately must present the appearance of high quality, stimulating the customer’s interest,” says Leonid Rosenthal. “Jewelry shops, perfume shops, cellular telephone operators – the larger firms and also the local ones – and generally some sort of cafe and shop for accessories.”
Developers commonly agree with this point of view. “Naturally, tenants in retail areas near the atrium garner more prestige, as the basic flow of visitors flows past these shops first,” says an expert from the firm of Don-Stroy. “For example, the Shchuka complex was created in such a way that visitors entering by way of the escalators would have an excellent view of which magazines were arranged around the atrium on every floor. Such a nuance proved very attractive for tenants.”
Other experts agree that the overall quality level of tenants depends on the positioning of the complex and its layout, and that the luxury and premium product groups are not always present among every tenant pool. “Basically, the atriums accommodate a certain number of public eateries, souvenir boutiques, or shops requiring only about 10-20 sqm of space. The level of these tenants will depend largely on the level of the center as a whole,” says Mikhail Gets.
Meanwhile, the leasing rates naturally influence the makeup of the tenants in the atrium area to a high degree. As Leonid Rosenthal points out, when the volume of occupied space is not great, the leasing rates can be particularly high: between $1200 and $1700 per sqm annually. Cafes and restaurants often pay 20% higher than the average rates at a magazine. “The rates for large tenants in an atrium zone really are inevitably some of the highest in the shopping center. It is well known that the size of the facility and the rates offered are directly proportional,” agrees Mikhail Gets.
Indeed, the majority of successful retail and entertainment centers offer some sort of premium brands in their atrium area. The aptly-named shopping center, Atrium, is now replacing a number of the tenants operating in its atrium zone. As the deputy head of the marketing and advertising department of the managing company, City Property Management, Olga Bakina, explained to us, the long-term contracts of many tenants in the atrium of Atrium are now about to expire. The management is hoping to make a number of upgrades in the tenant pool. “It is expected that there will be a number of new premium brands offered here, and though perhaps they will not be quite as posh as what’s offered in the Tretyakovskii Proezd, we will still be getting a bit above the mob. There will be a segmentation of floors. The first floor will offer brands of higher quality and the more affordable products will be sold on the second and third floors,” says Bakina. Tenants don’t have to stand in line for a spot in the atrium, as there is not always room under the sun for those who want it. “The shopping center’s not made out of rubber, after all, and we simply have to make these choices based,” concludes City Property Management.
The atrium zone has yet one more advantage, directed at the advancement of goods on the market – the opportunity to employ nonstandard forms of marketing enterprises. “These areas are very attractive for promotion linked to the sale of goods offered within the shopping center – announcements, sampling areas, presentations, shows, distribution of advertising, and so on. Impulse purchases also do better in such areas, when a customer hasn’t fully planned what it is he is going to buy,” says the head of the IT and consumer electronics wing of the trade-marketing agency, ITM, Denis Savchenko. According to Savchenko, the atrium zone often plays host to temporary retail points installed by companies in the finance sector – insurance brokers, banks, and investment companies – and the activities are generally set up to promote the manufactured goods sold within the shopping center, more often than the groceries or foodstuffs, even if there are such shops present.
At Atrium, there is an opportunity to use the atrium zones in the following way – the cafe and fountain area can host large-scale events and presentations, for example: the show promoting the tenth anniversary of Megafon. It also can host press conferences linked to new lines of products, or even concerts. The atrium near the main entrance is often an excellent are for cosmetics merchants or to display new models of automobiles – though not all experts agree with this last point. “To exhibit living advertisements for expensive, un-profiled categories is a debatable enough solution. The solution will depend on the makeup of visitors to the shopping center,” say the experts at ITM.
In a shopping center oriented on the family segment of visitors, however, it is significantly wiser to offer promotional stands for tenants selling clothes and children’s goods. It is obvious that not every visitor to every shopping center knows that he can buy a number of important and essential goods without even stepping beyond the cash register. Naturally, promotion targeting children will play a very important role on the parents who pass these areas as well – and on their pocket books – and may lead to them making further purchases. .
A Good Example
The essential value of the retail atrium is still the functionality of the wonderfully arranged space. Certainly, the ancient Romans had this in mind when they borrowed this idea from the Etruscans for a compositional center and ‘argument point’ within the house, where the fireplace and alter were also located. It was the main building with the skylight, where the Romans could relax and, ultimately, hold their ceremonies. Their empire may have fallen, and Pompey may have been buried in ash, but the atrium remains. The atrium returned to popularity when the legendary Crystal Palace architect, George Paxton, created pavilions of glass, metal, and concrete at the 1851 World Fair in London. The architect, having great experience constructing green houses, used his knowledge for the creation of larger spaces out of glass in order to take advantage of the great abundance of natural light, a great act of daring for that time. The Crystal Palace was named a great wonder of the world, and though the palace was ultimately destroyed in a fire, it inspired the world to use these great practical concepts – the atrium and the passageway – to their fullest.
The architect Erik Von Egeraat points out the fact that atriums began to appear with greater frequency around the turn of the 20th century in large, luxurious department stores in Moscow and throughout Europe. The long galleries demanded some sort of central point, and this point ultimately became the atrium. “Initially the atrium was established as an architectural concept in order to supplement the passage forms. It was more useful when the large mercantile galleries were covered and lit from above. Then the passage transformed into the atrium,” explains Leonid Rosenthal. It is fully appropriate to compare the specific composition of a shopping center with an atrium to the organization principles of an urban space: the retail galleries are the streets and the atrium is the central square.
For architects, the atrium is one of the most beloved of methods of receiving visitors, providing a delightful aesthetic to the entire building. “It is the air, the air, and again the air!” delightedly report those developers fortunate enough to be working on a project linked to atrium design.
“Using an atrium, the architecture of a building improves on a number of levels,” comments architect Erik Von Egeraat. “First of all, the atrium creates a feeling of free space and the sensation of luxury immediately upon entering the building, which is very important for visitors to a shopping center. The atrium also gives the shopping center an original stylistic touch.”
Developers share this point of view with architects and report several other advantages boasted by the atrium, for example – it’s economic feasibility. “The atrium helps to create an aesthetically expressive architectural volume and makes the facility lighter and airier, stripping away the monotony of which your gallery or caravan shop normally is guilty. The structure is then crowned by a ceremonial cupola and skylight, allowing daylight to work its magic and even ultimately cutting costs on lighting,” say experts from Don-Stroy.
Though the market currently may offer a multitude of retail and entertainment centers with atriums, market players considering the more or less successful solutions to design problems make regular mention of certain properties in particular. Mikhail Gets, for example, believes that one of the best shopping centers with an atrium zone is Atrium itself near the Kurskii railway station, as well as the shopping center, Evropeskii, near the Kievskaya metro station.
Leonid Rosenthal believes the brightest example of an atrium in Moscow from the architectural point of view is the one at GUM, which was part of the building’s basic design concept, pointing out that “GUM initially was built as a passage, and is the rare historical building which has kept its commercial function. The atrium zone there indeed creates a sensation of comfort and is basically a street of retail under the sun.” Leonid Rosenthal also agrees that the second most significant such structure is the Atrium in Zemlyanyi Val, which is absolutely worthy of the name. “This complex is in fact quite remarkable for its commercial functionality, where the pre-atrium zone is surrounded by a number of structures to encourage impulse trade,” says the expert. “Another excellent space is the Ramstore Kapitolii. The regions also make a good offering with Park House in Kazan. From my point of view, this atrium has come together quite nicely in terms of its functionality and exceptional tenant pool.
Experts also make frequent mention of the Shchuka complex located in northwestern Moscow, presenting itself as not just one atrium, but as an entire system of them, uniting a multi-layer space and an extraordinary client pool. The grand entrance to the Shchuka structure opens onto a square atrium based largely on the use of its panoramic lifts. A large round atrium situated near one of the other entrances to the shopping center is in fact the central element – it is through here that the retail galleries are ultimately accessed. The structure is then crowned with a very modern lighting system and display composition. The atrium directs the flow of visitors, making up one of the basic transport arteries in the complex. Here are concentrated the escalators which unify all the levels of Shchuka. The atrium even has a cafe tucked away between the retail levels and is unified them by an open-work staircase.
The interesting architectural solution at Evropeskii follows the principles of the passage system to an extent. The retail streets are laid out as rays around the central sun of the Moscow Atrium, which then leads the consumer to the Paris, Rome, London, and Berlin atriums. The design work in each atrium is accomplished through an architectural style appropriate to each European capital, and the Moscow Atrium also hosts a memorable clock-fountain which is naturally attractive to visitors. The creation of such zones has not only aesthetic, but also commercial meaning – the creator of this shopping center well understood that the atrium zone’s layout goes a long way towards ‘selling’ the shopping center as a whole.