Like the Hospice, Ardgowan Charity shops are an institution of Greenock and Inverclyde. The Walk In Shops offer a real sense of community and togetherness creating places where high quality charity goods are for sale, places to meet others, places to make donations and importantly a place to find out more about the Hospice.
The commission was to facility the design and delivery of a New Ardgowan Hospice Shop typology situated at West Stewart Street near the main shopping area of Greenock’s town centre.
The basis of the scheme is a 150sqm refurbishment project of an existing two storey commercial retail space into a volunteered led retail space on the ground floor with points of collection, storage and sorting space to the first floor area.
The design approach, alongside ensuring the better provision of new accessible facilities, was to primarily provide a strong and contemporary sense of identity to the store. The focus was also strategy led creating a new efficient ‘house’ palette and working model for future acquired retail properties and for existing shops to follow as decoration upgrades.
The proposals were simply conceived as the re-appropriation of a space defining the main retail area with the use of distinctive and playful coloured patterned surface. Alongside exposing the existing retail unit’s concrete structure as a means of efficiently creating a sense of character, new interior plywood linings were introduced to thresholds areas and window reveals to create feelings of home and familiar senses of decoration. Similarly, to assist retail organisation, a series of new plywood seating and display areas offered a choreographed sense of display.
