Franchise brands often come to Metro Deco when it is time to deliver their flagship location, and W Cosmetics was no different. Set in the heart of Bondi, this 200m²+ store is the brand’s largest location and the first to showcase its new design language as part of a wider master rollout. As W Cosmetics continues to evolve its retail offering, Metro Deco was brought in to help deliver the next level of its store design and construction.
The project presented a combination of significant technical and program constraints. The store features exceptionally high ceilings, requiring multi-person scissor-lift operations for everything from ceiling installation and above-ceiling services to sprinklers, air conditioning, lighting and the extensive Barissol lighting features. The wide shopfront required extra-thick toughened glass across a substantial uninterrupted span, adding another layer of complexity to the installation and sign-off process.
All of this was delivered within an extremely compressed four-week program on a 200m²+ site in one of Sydney’s most tightly constrained retail locations. For perspective, four weeks is typically the type of program allocated to a small kiosk of around 20m², often with no ceiling at all. Here, Metro Deco was delivering a full flagship store at more than ten times the footprint, with high-level services, complex lighting and a substantial shopfront.
Adding to the challenge, virtually every element of the store was curved. Curved ceilings, curved joinery, curved shopfront glazing and curved stainless steel all had to come together with precision.
Metro Deco is particularly proud of this delivery. The combination of scale, complexity and an exceptionally tight program put our systems and delivery process under significant pressure, and the project demonstrated exactly why our approach to planning, coordination and speed is built for demanding retail environments.
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