Aveda Pop-up Draws a Crowd at Shop! MarketPlace
Recrylic helps to bring Retail Challenge winning design to life
One of the highlights of Shop! MarketPlace 2024 held April 9-11 in Cincinnati was a life-size execution of the winning entry from the 2023 Retail Challenge contest. Recrylic was honored to help bring the winning solution to life by creating its iconic entrance.
Held at the Shop! Ideation event each fall, the Retail Challenge gives randomly assembled teams 6 hours to complete a given assignment, create designs and present their solution to a panel of judges. The 2023 assignment was to design a 20’ x 20’ pop-up store for Aveda that best reflects the company’s brand attributes and values.
This year’s winning team included representatives and sponsors from a variety of top suppliers to the retail industry, including Dynamic Resources, L&S, Lynx Innovation, Moss, Nelson Worldwide, OPTO, Visual Citi and Visual Creations/Rose Display. The winning team was then tasked with building out its creation for Shop! Marketplace.
Building a Winner
The winning design featured a circular walk-through experience that reflects Aveda’s mission to elevate well-being and self-care in a sustainable way – including a focus on mind, body and soul. The shop entrance was designed with translucent curved acrylic panels in mind . . . but the winning team needed help bringing the concept to life.
That’s when the design team reached out to Recrylic for assistance. The pop-up shop not only needed recycled acrylic panels – but also the know-how to engineer and build an attractive, practical and sustainable solution.
Mind, Body and Soul Meets Attractive, Practical and Sustainable
The Recrylic team quickly noticed that the original design likely would have been prohibitively expensive to create, based on its size and shape. That’s not a surprise or a knock on the winning team, as the Retail Challenge takes place within a six-hour span – leaving little time for estimates.
As it does with all of its projects, Recrylic’s design and engineering team reviewed the initial design and then created options that maintain or enhance the original design, while also improving affordability and sustainability.
Recrylic recommended a series of louvered slats made from Recrylic, built around a drape-formed façade that included an Aveda logo sign, also made from Recrylic. All production was handled in-house.
Because Recrylic is made from 100% recycled content and is 100% recyclable, the entrance helped reduce the carbon footprint associated with other materials. Based on the weight of the panels, using Recrylic in place of virgin acrylic saved 4.7 barrels of fossil fuel – and reduced carbon emissions by 2.2 tons. If the pop-up store were replicated in a larger scale rollout, the carbon savings would scale proportionately.
A new home
All good things come to an end . . . and the pop-up store seen at Shop! MarketPlace was no exception. However, the entrance was returned to Recrylic and will soon be displayed in its showroom gallery – along with a curated collection of hundreds of other examples of retail design excellence. To visit the gallery or learn more about the Aveda entrance, please complete the form below or contact info@Recrylic.com.