This multilevel showroom filters Jardan’s “beautiful yet relaxed” brand through the colour and light of Sydney. It’s a welcoming, comfortable space designed to draw in a new wave of customers.
The relocation of Jardan’s Sydney operations from Rosebery to Oxford Street provided an opportunity to attract a new retail customer base while maintaining a strong offer to architects and designers. Taking our cue from the easy-going beauty central to the brand’s identity, we designed a showroom that feels less like a gallery and more like a home.
Larger furniture purchases typically come after multiple visits to a showroom, so we designed a space to support this – one that invites the crucial first visit and then compels those customers to return. The design of the Sydney showroom reflects this, with a colour palette inspired by art and design families connected to the local area – the likes of John Olsen and his daughter Louise, co-founder of Dinosaur Designs, and Brett Whiteley.
IF Architecture’s approach to colour here is perhaps most noticeable in the warm pink of the central stairway. In plan, its sweeping curves describe a naïve heart-shape; in practice, its colour and warmth, and its organic, sculptural form, entice visitors to explore all three levels of the showroom.
The design of fittings, the generous use of natural timber and stone, and the merchandising of product to create domestic “rooms” within the larger space create the impression of walking through a beautiful Sydney home. For retail customers, there is a sense of aspiration in this, but aspiration that is within reach. And it provides a context where they can more easily visualise Jardan’s products in their own homes. It also creates natural-feeling locations for interactions between customers and the sales team. They might sit with each other on a sofa to look through fabric swatches, for example, or perch at the long kitchen island bench with a freshly brewed espresso to sign a contract.
The new showroom represents a marked transformation of a building that had seen better days. Built in 1924, it had most recently accommodated a ground-floor bookshop with offices upstairs. A heritage overlay restricted significant external change, and engineering works were required to reinforce floors and walls, setting the stage for a completely reimagined interior architecture.
IF Architecture’s work here has given Jardan an inspiring new home that proudly presents their brand and products to Sydney.