record, a place that transcends the internet
to be ‘bigger, grander and in every way
more exhilarating and more energizing than
anything the customer could experience at
home’. That’s The New York Times reviewing
Niketown, the brand’s previous New York
City flagship, in 1997 – in a language strik-
ingly similar to what we hear from many
retail gurus today. Two decades later, can
physical stores still break new ground in
the post-Amazon era, or is this déjà vu
all over again?
Few can answer that question better
than John Hoke, Nike’s chief design officer
and the man responsible for both the original
Niketown and the new House of Innovation.
That means he’s built a New York flagship
for the same iconic brand in the pre- and
post-internet eras. ‘It’s interesting to revisit
reimagining retail,’ he says, explaining the
thinking behind Nike’s latest creation.Every brand seems to want stores to be
‘immersive’ now. Does that idea guide you
as a designer? JOHN HOKE: My sense of
immersion today and tomorrow is about
doing a couple of things well. You have to
stir the emotions, and I think you do that
by captivating and engaging all the senses.
I like to say that one of the things we do
really well is to design for goose bumps.
What I mean by that is when you come
across something that literally raises the
hair on your neck, captures your emotion
and makes your body say pay attention.
For us, the new House of Innova-
tion store is a tour de force in terms of what
Nike design can bring to consumers. Everydiscipline of Nike design is showcased: our
innovation agenda, product design, footwear,
apparel, equipment, multimedia design, archi-
tecture, branding, sound and lighting design.What’s one example of a ‘goose bumps’
moment at the House of Innovation? The
façade itself is very dynamic. Fifth Avenue is
a kind of concrete canyon – you’re con-
fronted with lots of stone. Both metaphori-
cally and creatively, we aimed for transpar-
ency in the brand and the setting. We had
this idea: how can you activate a glass façade
for those who are walking, driving or run-
ning down the street? So we used slumped
glass shaped into sine and cosine waves,
and on top of that we etched a faceted cut.
As the waves come together, the result is a
very interesting moiré effect as you pass, »Co
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