Retail
We design shops. Stores that carry a brand, move stock, and still work for the person standing behind the counter at four o'clock on a Saturday. The work runs from a single airport kiosk to a national roll-out, and from a jewellery counter in Pukekohe to a flagship in the International Terminal.
What we do
Store design and fitout. Concept through to opening day: space planning, specialist detailing, lighting, joinery, material selection and procurement, signage and brand elements.
Roll-outs. Repeat formats documented so a store can be built again in another town without being redesigned from scratch.
Airport and travel retail. A demanding category with its own rules on servicing, security, fire and after-hours access. We have delivered in both the landside and airside zones at Auckland Airport.
Shopping centres and malls. Tenancy design inside centres, and the centres themselves.
Selected work
Icebreaker's flagship in the International Terminal at Auckland Airport, built from pine, timber and schist-style stone so that visitors meet New Zealand on the way out of it.
Hannahs, redesigned around 150 years of the brand, with warm lighting, natural materials and streamlined displays.
Trelise Cooper's Wellington flagship, relaunching the brand with details built to travel to later stores, including a velvet swing.
Wright's Jewellers in Pukekohe, open displays and polished brass against light ash, delivered on budget by local contractors.
Honda's North Shore dealership, a pyramid-shaped space untouched for thirty years, reopened as a five-star customer experience.
How a retail project runs
Understand the customer. What should someone feel, see and do in this space, and what do you need them to buy.
Concept design. The idea, tested against the site, the budget and the brand.
Developed and detailed design. Documentation to a level a shopfitter can price and build without guessing.
Costing, consent and build. Tender documentation, evaluation alongside you or your quantity surveyor, and contract administration through to opening.
Roll-out. Where a format repeats, documented once and adapted per site.
Why Walker
Registered architects and interior designers in one studio, so the shell and the fitout are not two separate conversations with two separate consultants.
More than 160 local and international design awards.
A retail portfolio built over decades, across New Zealand and into Fiji, Vietnam, India and Dubai.
Common questions
Do you work on a single store, or only on roll-outs?
Both. A large amount of the retail portfolio is a single tenancy, and several are national formats built repeatedly.
Can you work inside an existing lease and shell?
Yes. Most retail work is fitout inside someone else's building, including landlord and centre approvals.
Do you handle the shopfitter and the build?
We document for tender, help evaluate the shopfitters, and administer the contract through to opening.
How long does a retail fitout take?
It depends on the size and the landlord, and the honest answer comes after we have seen the site. One of ours was delivered in two weeks because the previous tenant was waiting.
Start a conversation
Tell us what the space has to do commercially and we will tell you plainly whether we are the right studio for it.