Mark Shale

The decision by Mark Shale to relocate its long-established North Michigan Avenue street-front location across the street and up three floors in a vertical mall was measured by the opportunity to consolidate four levels of selling into two and to be part of an urban mall versus a freestanding store. The result has been consistent double-digit sales increases across all categories. The comprehensive design, development, and execution of the 20,000-square-foot apparel and accessories store for men and women involved a total demolition and removal of the former tenant from street level to level four, with Mark Shale demising levels three and four, and the creation of an intercommunicating stair for their new space.

The organizing principle of the plan is a sequence of “rooms” loosely defined by high wardrobe fixtures. The ceiling architecture and lighting plan overlay a uniform pattern on the loose fixture plan, allowing for lighting versatility. Counters were designed as “hospitality desks”—contoured for comfort, ease, and customer interaction. Strong color was introduced as a changing backdrop to show windows and at the back wall of the intercommunicating oval-shaped stair. Fixtures were designed to be thin, light, and elegantly detailed combinations of ribbed glass, brushed stainless steel, and wood.

The store was inspired by the luxurious simplicity and functionality found in the work of the early modernists of the ’20s and ’30s. The result was intended to be casual elegant, or “comfortably modern.” The fixtures and millwork were simple, planar, and carefully proportioned to create spaces void of ornament. A series of custom-designed area rugs help to define the loosely organized “rooms.” The mall’s front architectural design included large areas of glazing for maximum viewing into the store across the broad expanses of mall frontage. Existing columns were clad in large-scale millwork enclosures to reinforce the sense of a sequence of spaces.