PAVE 2016 Student Design Competition

Description

OBJECTIVE

The 2016 PAVE design challenge invites you to explore a new health and wellness design concept for future Kroger Marketplace stores. Kroger is sponsoring this year’s PAVE competition as a way to reach out to design schools and students around the world in anticipation of stimulating new design concepts for one of the most important and rapidly evolving areas of our future stores, referred to as “Total Health”. Our goal is to create a uniquely uplifting experience that is attractive, welcoming, progressive and immersive.
We want to inspire emotional connections with our customers that will raise their shopping expectations and reinforce the trust and confidence they have in the Kroger family of stores. We recognize the abundance of choices people have to shop for items and services related to health and wellness across multiple channels, including supermarkets, drug stores, specialty shops and on-line. Our challenge is to present Total Health as a seamless and comprehensive offering of medical and personal care needs so they feel inspired, appreciated and validated by their decision to shop in our store.

The design aesthetic should be uplifting and transformational to entice shoppers to engage in an immersive environment that appeals to all five senses. We want to promote a sense of adventure, educational curiosity and encouragement for our customers to become advocates for their personal and family health and well-being. We encourage projects, which are a departure from our current aesthetic. Research opportunities for this project extend across multiple retail channels, as we seek to change traditional expectations of health and wellness within a supermarket environment by designing a space that offers genuine hospitality for all our shoppers regardless of age, gender, ethnicity and economic status. There are several concepts within the drug and supermarket industry worth exploring, including: Walgreens/Duane Reade (particularly their more recent “wellness” concepts), Whole Foods, Wegmans, Hy Vee and Giant Eagle. You are also encouraged to check out other retailers such as Starbucks (and their Seattle Roastery), REI, Lululemon –among many others that go beyond just attracting customers, but strive to create memorable experiences that connect with customers and give them a reason to come back again and again.

KROGER BACKGROUND

Kroger was founded in 1883 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the largest grocery chain in the US, with nearly 3000 stores coast-to-coast, representing multiple formats and banners in 35 states and serving nearly nine million customers each day. Much of Kroger’s growth has been through acquisition. In addition to the “Kroger” banner, we are recognized by different names in regions across the country, including: Fred Meyer, QFC, Ralphs, King Soopers, Frys, Smiths, Dillons, Harris Teeter, Mariano’s and Pick N Save. The Kroger Marketplace format is primarily utilized for our store program in many parts of the US. It has 100,000 square feet of selling space and features an extensive assortment of high-quality fresh foods, groceries, drugs and general merchandise –all under one roof. Our “Total Health” solution, housed in 6500 square feet, is one of the major areas of the format, and the focus of this year’s PAVE Design Challenge. Please refer to the attached Exhibit A to see the current standard layout of the Marketplace format and Exhibit B for an enlarged image of the Total Health area.

THE PAVE DESIGN CHALLENGE

Traditionally, the PAVE competition is divided into two groups; store design and visual merchandising. This year, we are integrating the disciplines into a comprehensive challenge and inviting students to consider the full spatial context while focusing on their primary area of design interest. For example, students that consider “merchandise presentation” to be a personal strength are encouraged to focus on the Visual Merchandising aspect of the challenge and may choose to apply their design solutions to the layout already provided by Kroger in the exhibits. For students that consider “interior design” or “space planning” to be their strength, they may focus on overall layout and redefine the existing spatial arrangements and adjacencies.