Retail Building Design for T. Wall Properties
a illustration project by Terrence

Creative brief

The buyer added updates to the brief. Read them.

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT US:

We're a real estate developer looking for a creative design idea for a to-be-built retail building at a major corner with high traffic. We want a bold, eclectic design for the facades (two dimentional is fine; we have an architect who can take the design from there).

The actual corner of the site will hold a single story restaurant, with a ground level patio separating that building from a two story building with up to four retail stores on the first floor and office space on the second floor. The retailers will be small fast food restaurants (like a sub shop, coffee shop, etc.) and a couple of non-food stores, each being no bigger than about 25 feet in width. The building's north and south facades both have to be 'fronts'; no back to the building. The restaurant will be about a 5,000 sqft footprint, whereas the two-story building will be a footprint of about 12,000 sqft (with the second floor the same size).

I want the facade of the corner restaurant building to be about one-and-a-half stories in height, whereas the two story building will be about 28 to 35 in height. (Again, scale or exact sizing is not important; it's the creative appearance that we are looking for.) The corner building should have some height to it and a bold or crazy statement to it in order to attract attention from people driving by. The length of the combined buildings will be about 200 feet long, with about 100 feet for the two story building and the remainder for the one-story building and the patio combined.

Don't worry about materials; we'll take care of that. Focus on design ideas, color, and an eclectic statement. The design chosen will be amended by our architect to accommodate signage for the stores and building requirements.

Don't worry about what is around this building; I don't want this retail building looking anything like the office park around it. I want the retail building to stand out.

Technically it's one building from a construction standpoint, but the design from ground floor of the building will make it look like two separate buildings with a patio in between.



HERE IS WHAT WE NEED:

I need a design for the one of the four facades of the building(s) - either the north or the south facade. It may be used to generate the final design for a building to be built probably this fall at the corner of Greenway Blvd. and John Q. Hammons Drive in Middleton, Wisconsin, adjacent a new six story office tower at 8215 Greenway Blvd., Middleton, WI. (Look at Google Earth or Mapquest - the site is in the southeast corner of the intersection of Greenway and John Q. Hammons - note that Google Earth's photo is more than five years old and Mapquest is more then two years old and does not show the office tower that runs adjacent and parallel to the beltline on the site.) This outlot sits between two intersections with traffic lights and adjacent a major interchange with the West Beltline Highway.

OUR TARGET AUDIENCE IS:

The customers to the building will be office employees of the surrounding office park and people driving by. I want them attracted to the retailers in the building by the unusual and eclectic design. Many of the buildings nearby are fairly typical and not bold. I want customers to see the building and think "wow, that look's interesting, let's go there."

WE LIKE THESE DESIGNS:

I won't provide any ideas because we want to be open minded to new ideas.

WE ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE (or we don't want to see) THIS IN OUR DESIGN:

anything goes.