Where the Line Sits
We treat architecture and physical environment design as one job with two scales. Architecture covers the building itself: its form, structure, façade and the way it sits on the site. Physical environment design covers what customers experience inside and around it, including layout, materials, graphics, signage and furniture. We don't draw a hard line between them, because the façade, the entrance and the interior all have to tell the same story.
In the UBA Prestige branch, the black exterior and the interior were designed together as one statement. We take on architecture for corporate and retail buildings, and for up-market residential and multi-unit developments, and we bring the same brand thinking to each.
Flow Planning
Flow planning solves for how people and things move through a space, so it works better and feels easier. In a branch that means the customer's route from the threshold to the service point, how zones are arranged, and each service step, all designed for clarity, efficiency and trust. Staff movement and queues come into it too, and on a site with vehicles, it also covers cars, parking and deliveries.
For the Vivo Energy restaurants in Nairobi, that meant fitting parking, a drive-thru and delivery bays onto one busy site. Good flow planning makes the space easy to use and lets the brand feel natural.
A Site That Shouldn't Have Worked
The Big Square restaurant site in Nairobi sits on an existing Vivo Energy petrol station. The brief was to fit two new quick-service restaurants onto the site. The plot was awkwardly shaped and sat on a busy road, and it also had to hold parking, a drive-thru, delivery bays and the existing petrol forecourt.
The answer was a building with an unconventional plan shape. We made it iconic, so drivers see it from the busy road in front, and it becomes a landmark. Behind that face, we kept the operational flow and the drive-thru out of sight but linked them carefully to the forecourt flow, so cars, deliveries and staff each move the way they need to, without spoiling what customers see.
The restaurants were profitable, and the site became a well-known food destination for people heading home from the city centre.
Refurbishment or New-Build
Starts from the strategy and an empty site. We design the branch around what the brand needs the space to do, and it becomes the reference for the rest of the network.
Starts with what's already there. We audit the existing site, check it against the drawings and the way the branch operates, and design with the current layout and the cost in mind. Budget and timing are part of the design, so we can propose a complete overhaul or a staggered approach.
Some sites only need a facelift. Where a branch will be fully refurbished later, we apply the new look with minor works today. We audit a sample of these sites, which gives us the scenarios and adaptations that bring each branch in line with the new positioning.
All three routes, new-build, refurbishment and facelift, use the same kit of parts and the same stratification matrix, so they all read as one brand, and old and new sites stay aligned as the rollout progresses.
Keeping It Tied to Brand Intent
Strategy drives design. It's the principle behind everything we do. We take our lead from the brand strategy, and every design decision, from the spatial plan to the materials and touchpoints, is rooted in it. We then protect that intent all the way to the finished building.
- Approvals on 3D renders. You approve the components and spaces as renders, so everyone agrees what's being built before construction starts.
- A kit of parts. Every component is drawn and specified, and the stratification matrix sets which ones each site receives, so the design can't be reinterpreted branch by branch.
- Detailed documentation. Plans, sections, elevations, finishes and furniture schedules give your local team what they need to tender and build.
- Pilot sites. We prove the design on pilot sites before it goes across the network.
- Design adherence inspections. We visit sites under construction, and suppliers where needed, to check that what's built matches what we designed.
- Interior standards in the brand manual. Rendered illustrations and base drawings of each component sit alongside the brand guidelines, so contractors and franchisees can follow them.
Generic construction usually creeps in over time, when a team becomes too familiar and the intent gets lost between the drawings and the site. Our involvement continues through construction, so the intent stays intact, and we're often appointed to do the layout drawings for all sites in the network.