T
he physical retail sector is addressing
a number of challenges, including
the convenience of online shopping.
These days, the UK’s best high street
developments and shopping centres are
adapting to provide destinations that
continue to meet changing consumer
demands. This also means they need to be
designed carefully to enhance their context.
Most new retail schemes, such as intu
Watford’s extended and improved offering
in Watford town centre, incorporate leisure
amenities such as cinemas and food outlets.
Where this project succeeds is that it
successfully integrates the scheme with the
existing context, and uses its architecture to
enliven the setting but also to provide a
human scale and blend with the town
around it.
Retail and mixed use specialist practice
Leslie Jones Architecture, a practice well
known to intu from several previous jobs,
was brought in to bring more cohesion and
legibility to this key town centre retail site.
The development site comprised the 1970s
Charter Place, an external shopping
precinct that was dated both in its design
and its relevance in the current market.
Shopping centre group intu, which owned
the successful centre next door that had
opened in the 1990s, felt it was best placed
to transform Charter Place into something
which would delight customers and add to
its existing offer.
The new scheme would see the majority
of Charter Place demolished, and replaced
with a purpose-built 400,000 ft^2 retail and
leisure extension to the existing intu
Watford centre.
The scheme presented a number of
challenges including the requirement toINTU WATFORD
HERTFORDSHIREBUILDING
PROJECTSA major extension and refurbishment to a shopping centre in Watford helps give visitors
an exciting and even uplifting experience, including a range of leisure offerings, in a
design that carefully blends the project into its settingExtending the retail experience
37ADF NOVEMBER 2019 WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UKW
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