Feeling furniture: E-commerce retailer MADE opens ambitious physical store

The e-commerce site commissioned architect Bureau de Change to create the space that brings the store’s digital offering to life in a physical showroom on Charing Cross Road.

An eye-catching push-pin window display uses 40,000 clear tubes to create the outlines of its furniture designs and hints at the playful, tactile space within.

An entire wall dedicated to the fabrics MADE uses on its furniture as they browse the store’s online collections by scanning cloudtags with iPad minis, or browse a more traditional showroom with the addition of projections recommending similar products.

‘There are things you can’t see online,’ says Bureau de Change founder and lead architect Billy Mavropoulos. ‘You need to actually touch it, sit on it, or see the colours in real life to get a sense of the quality.’

As e-commerce lacks the necessary haptic feedback to truly understand a product’s suitability, many online retailers are reversing the trends we have seen over the past decade and moving back into physical spaces for Retail 2.0.

Order a copy of our Retail Futures Report 2015 for more.