THE HYBRID HIGH STREET CHARITY SHOP

Age UK Wigan Borough (AgeUKWB) approached UCLan to embark upon a new and exciting business venture with a powerful vision to break the mould of the existing High Street charity shop by reaching out to engage with a diverse multigenerational audience through a contemporary business model, with the local Wigan community as a pivotal focus. This led to the development of a new innovative flexible ‘hybrid’ retail design, envisaging a new future model for the High Street charity shop.

The resulting design is a self-sustaining, regionally focused approach to flexible space usage within one central high-street charity location.  The project innovates physically by creating a contemporary retail store design that can adapt to the ever-changing retail market industry and quick turn-around of product ranges. The unique and innovative modular furniture system, designed as a bespoke mass production modular system, provides the multi-adaptable framework to change retail provision to community space and vice versa, in a truly innovative way.