The complexity of the elementary interface: shopping space Alan ...

The complexity of the elementary interface: shopping space

Alan PennUniversity College London, UK.

[email protected].

Abstract

Trading is one of the most primitive of all social interfaces. Here it is argued that it is alsospatial in three main respects: in terms of distributions of goods, in terms of the networkproperties of space that distribute shoppers, and in terms of the cognitive aspects of spacethat allow people to coordinate their search for goods. A simplified sketch of the natureof trading and a description of the importance of shopping for modern material cultureare followed by a review of a series of findings of space syntax research with regard toshopping space. Intelligibility is found to be an important component of successful retailspace. Finally, the case of Ikea is described in which the opposite appears to be the case.It is concluded that this is an example of a special form of contract between shopperand trader in which individual control is handed over in return for a licence to impulsepurchase. The role of spatial design in constructing this contract is described, and it isproposed that contract formation is generic to the shopping interface.

1. Introduction

One of the central functions of the spaces within and between buildings is to create andcontrol the interfaces between different categories of people. In this paper I will reviewwhat an analysis of patterns of built space can tell us about one of the most primitiveand elementary of social interfaces; that concerned with trading goods. Trading appearsto be simple, but it raises in elementary form a number of the constituent elements ofsocial interfaces that appear in other more elaborate social forms. A study of trading cantherefore help us to understand a wider range of organisations and building types. Tradingis also pervasive. It influences urban form and land use patterning as well as buildinginteriors, and appears in one form or another in every society and at every period ofhistory. Finally, trading offers an immediate link between the social and economic aspectsof society, since the placement of comparative values upon goods is in itself an indicatorof their social significance. In this respect a study of the effects of architecture on tradingis of direct relevance to our understanding more generally of the linkages between social,spatial and economic structures in society.

The first section of this paper develops a theoretical sketch of trading at its mostbasic, drawing on essentially economic arguments. Next, the classes of goods traded andthe ways in which these vary in their social and personal significance is discussed, drawingon arguments from psychology, anthropology and marketing. A series of studies of retailspaces in which space syntax has been used to quantify spatial pattern are then reviewedand these are used to define the elements of a generic spatial interface for trading at thebuilding interior and urban scales which define our everyday experience.

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Figure 3: Left: I remember by mother carrying this teapot when we first arrived in the UK(age 7); Right: The antechamber to Tutankhamens tomb containing the material goodsrequired for the afterlife.

2. The spatial elements of trading

Trading requires the construction of an interface between those with goods, and thosewith needs. This interface is in principle very simple, but it is also spatial and temporal.Those with surplus goods and those with needs must be brought together into the samespace at the same time for any kind of transaction to take place. At its simplest, tradinginvolves the exchange of one kind of goods for another. The need to trade is built uponthe likelihood of individuals possessing more of one kind of good and less of another thanthey need. All that is then required for trading to take place is that two individuals withcomplementary requirements and surpluses should meet. The chances of this happeningdepend first on the chances of people meeting at all, and second upon the chances thattheir surpluses and needs are complementary. The first depends on peoples dispositionin space and their movements over time. However, the second factors impact on thelikelihood of a trade being possible is clearly significant. If there were only two kinds ofgoods - say meat and vegetables - and the population were split evenly into those with alack of one and a surplus of the other, then it is easy to see that there is a 50% chance of atransaction taking place at any meeting, just so long as there is no spatial patterning of thedifferent goods. However, if we assume that following a transaction both individuals haveas much of both goods as they require and have exchanged their surpluses, the chances forothers to meet and transact are reduced. If we go on to assume that there are more thanjust two kinds of goods, that supplies of raw materials may be regionally located, varyin seasonal availability, or are consumed at different rates, that certain classes of goodsdepend on their production by skilled crafts people, and so forth, it is easy to see thatthe probability of the right people with complementary needs meeting at the right timereduce. These probabilities can be greatly increased by eliminating the requirement thatany pair of individuals needs and surpluses be complementary for a transaction to takeplace.

Three kinds of mechanism help increase the probabilities of a transaction taking place:money, stores and traders. A common currency that all members of society will acceptas a token for goods in general removes the need for those making transactions to have apair of complementary surpluses and needs. In these circumstances all that is required is

The complexity of the elementary interface: shopping space 27

Figure 4: A family history in the corner of the dining room.

that those with a particular kind of goods to offer are bought into contact with those witha need for those specific goods and that the latter also have sufficient of the currency topay. Storage facilities allow temporal fluctuations in supply and demand to be smoothedout, at least for durable goods. Whilst the emergence of traders, a group whose role is tomediate between those with surpluses and those with needs, again increases the chancesof those with a need fulfilling it.

Although all three mechanisms can increase the likelihood of a transaction takingplace, to increase the probability still further we need to bring those with a specific needinto contact with those with the required goods on offer. This is essentially a search oraddressing problem, and relates to information about what specific goods, or alternatively,which people with what specific needs, are to be found where in space. Knowledge is neededabout the spatial location of primary production, storage or manufacture of goods. Storagefacilities tend to be relatively large and fixed in location, and so make searching for goodseasier. Traders as a class are either fixed in location or move to find those with needs.In their fixed locations, they also can make search for goods easier. As travelling tradershowever, the search is no longer for goods, but for those with needs, and in this thetrader can gain experience and knowledge of the geography and timing of surpluses andrequirements - that is, they can gain knowledge of their market. Clearly for the mobileagent in the system, whether shopper or travelling salesman, the task is a cognitive one,requiring some kind of map or addressing mechanism to make their search for goods orfor their market efficient.

Given this greatly simplified sketch of the basic elements of trade, it can be seen thatspace and spatial layout play an important role in three main respects. First, space isinvolved in the distribution of both goods and needs, where it is clear that neither is likelyto be evenly distributed in space. A driving force for trade lies therefore in the geographicalinequalities of supply and demand. Second, in the way that spatial pattern, the network ofroutes for example, will create unequal flows of people on different route segments. Theseinequalities in locations of movement flow will create locations with greater and lesseropportunity for traders to transact. Third, in the way that spatial pattern is understoodby people, and so in the way that location of specific commodities is remembered ordiscovered by people.

These three factors; geographic, network and cognitive, provide the basis for the in-

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volvement of space in trade. However, the relationship between trade and space becomesmore complex. Since the location chosen by a specific trader could be expected to influencethe patterns of movement of people seeking goods, one might anticipate that traders wouldbe found to cluster in accessible locations so as to maximise their market size. Alterna-tively, one might expect that traders would seek to distance themselves from competingtraders so as to maximise their market share. In this kind of situation the choice of alocation by a trader becomes complex, and depends in part on the cognitive landscape ofthose with whom the trader seeks to trade and in part on the decisions of other traders.One might also expect populations of both traders and consumers to accumulate withdifferent densities across the landscape according to the opportunities offered by differentlocations for trade. The effects of production, manufacture and labour would be expectedto further increase the differences in population densities, markets for goods and the ge-ographic differences in distribution of goods. Finally, one might expect that land itselfwould become the subject of trade according to the opportunities it affords for access toa market or its value for other purposes.

The characteristic of all these effects is that they include feedback where initial de-cisions affect subsequent states. These are the conditions in which complex dynamicsemerge, and in which strategic choices must be made by those involved. Consider for ex-ample a traders decision over whether to maximise market share or market size. This typeof decision will lead either to clustering together of traders or to their dispersion acrossthe landscape according to their choice of strategy.

3. The social significance of material goods

The matter becomes more complex still when the range of types of goods being tradedis considered. At this point we need to introduce something in the form of a simplifiedsketch of the kinds of goods that might be traded and their use or significance. Themost basic goods are those required for survival: food, fuel and fibre. However, almostall goods acquire value that goes beyond their use value, through attached symbolic orcultural meaning at either a social or an individual level (McCracken, 1988). Althoughmany goods are raw products, still more are processed or manufactured and take aninput of labour or craftsmanship and design, and this input in itself may acquire socialsignificance. In our simplified sketch it will be sufficient to distinguish between just twoclasses of goods for the present. The first, where the predominant factor is their usevalue, and where little distinction can be made between different versions of the goods.These are commodities where a significant factor in their choice is the convenience andcost associated with their acquisition - a bag of salt might be an example. The second arethose in which the specific attributes of the goods are of greater importance, where a widerrange of different versions of a similar product may be available, and where choice mustbe exercised in their acquisition. This is often associated with goods of a greater socialsignificance, or where design and craftsmanship play a larger role in their production.In these cases acquisition may require comparison between different versions of similarproducts, the exercise of personal choice and social discussion or negotiation. Clothing orgifts are examples of goods where the exercise of choice is a key factor.

An important component of the social significance of goods relates to the way thatwe attach meaning to specific material artefacts (Belk, 1988). For instance, a particularobject may take on significance because of its involvement in an individuals personal or


Figure 5: Couture, coiffure and cosmetics as individual and group identity statements.

family history (Figure 3). We surround ourselves with material objects that hold specificmemories; we re-tell those memories and re-make them through activities such as usingspecific objects on particular occasions or through cleaning and polishing or comparingand discussing them with others (Figure 4). In this way material objects contribute tothe creation of who we are and the transmission or reproduction of that identity fromgeneration to generation (Robert & Reynolds, 2004; Schultz & Baker, 2004).

The selection of new objects seems to embody two kinds of personal statement depend-ing on whether they are intended for personal use or for gifting to others. In the case ofgifts we often try to say something about our relations to those to whom we give, and theway that we see them. In the case of personal objects we make statements about ourselvesand the way we would like others to see us. These statements are made not only throughmaterial goods, but through the way we arrange and decorate our living environment, theway we dress, cut our hair and apply cosmetics, and through the food we eat and cook forothers and the personae and lifestyles we adopt (Figure 5). In this sense the goods andcommodities that we buy play a fundamental role in the way that we present ourselves toeach other, and so in the construction and reproduction of contemporary social structures.

4. The emergence and scaling of centres as a result of economic processes

The social significance attributed to material objects goes some way to explain the impor-tance attached to shopping in contemporary culture, the elaboration of retail buildingsand the key role played by retail in defining urban land use and land value patterns. Thereare, however, certain empirical phenomena that have encouraged people to believe thatthese interfaces are ultimately probabilistic, and behave in relatively simple ways.

Amongst of the most intriguing of these are Zipfs findings relating the rank andsize of cities within regions, and the associated findings by Beckman, Berry and others,relating to the numbers of distinct functions associated with a city of a specific size.Zipf noted that the relationship between the population of the largest settlement and thenext largest in a region was similar throughout the range of settlement size (Zipf, 1949).Beckman noted that similar sized settlements had similar numbers of different urbanfunctions, and that there was what might be called a functional hierarchy in settlements(Beckman, 1958). Berrys study of Chicago found similar hierarchies of sub-centres within

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a metropolitan area (Berry, 1967). These findings taken together with the theory of centralplaces developed by Christaller and Losch, have provided the basis for much theorisingabout processes of urbanisation (Christaller, 1933; Losch, 1944).

There are, in general, two fundamentally opposed views of the origins of society andsettlement form. The first holds that nature is red in tooth and claw: that social groupingsare founded on power struggles and defence; that humans first urge is to compete and thatall social organisations, as well as the buildings and cities they construct, result ultimatelyfrom this struggle and from defensive or offensive strategy (see for example Mumford,1961). The second holds that fundamentally to be human is to be altruistic. This schoolsuggests that the first social and economic structures emerged from cooperation ratherthan competition, and that the spatial environments that we construct, rather than beingshaped by defensive needs, tend rather to be shaped by the need to interact, transact andcooperate.

One of the main proponents of the latter view is Jane Jacobs, an economist who turnedher attention to urban form. Her argument - in The Economy of Cities - is that urbanform arose initially on the basis of a need to trade raw materials. It was this that requiredspatial density as well as long distance movement. As a consequence of density and urbansettlement came the intensification of activity and division of labour that led to industry,trade and settled agriculture. She holds, somewhat contentiously, that urban settlementcame first, and what we would think of now as society evolved as a result (Jacobs, 1969).Whatever the historical truth of the matter, her fundamental position is that humansociety emerged and developed mainly through specialisation, the cooperation and tradethat this entailed, and that the form of human spatial settlement is shaped by these needs.

In a more recent economic treatment of this issue Xiaokai Yang proposes a basic linkbetween specialisation and urban density (Yang & Rice, 1994). He suggests two driversfor urban agglomeration. The first is the efficiency induced in transaction costs by in-creased urban density which makes division of labour and specialisation possible. Thesecond works in the reverse, promoting further divisions of labour as a result of urbandensity by concentrating a large network of transactions in a city, even if those who par-ticipate in these transactions do not live in the city. The efficiencies of a single centrearise and persist even if the population which the centre serves is more widely spread.Yangs model is consistent with both Beckmans hierarchies of urban functions, and Zipfsscaling of urban rank sizes. He provides a behavioural basis for central place theory, an-swering Eaton and Lipseys (1982) fundamental critique of classical central place theories.The proposition is simple. Specialisation through division in labour can create significantefficiencies in production and manufacture; however it incurs increased transaction costsif the purchasers must travel between suppliers dispersed across the landscape. Densityprovided by urban settlement reduces these transaction costs, and particularly so whenmulti-purpose shopping trips are allowed. In these the travel costs are kept approximatelyconstant, irrespective of the number of goods bought. Specialisation, and hence an in-creasing range of goods, follows from density and size. Meanwhile, size and range of goodson offer allow those seeking to purchase to combine multiple purposes into a single trip,thus saving time and cost (Yang, 2001).


5. The syntax of fine scale shopping space

Whilst these economic arguments set an important theoretical basis for a discussion ofthe spatial arrangement of retail, they are relatively abstract, and do not relate to the finescale structure of built space that we experience. The actual patterns of agglomerationand differentiation of retail functions that we see in urban property use patterns appear tobe strongly related to both the geometry and network topology of the urban street system(see for example Figure 11 in Perdikogianni & Penn, 2005, in these proceedings). Twotheories have sought to account for this from a space syntax perspective. The first is thetheory of natural movement (Hillier et al., 1993) which proposes that the configurationof the street grid accounts for a substantial proportion of pedestrian movement in urbanareas. Retail land uses are shown to affect movement patterns by acting as a multiplier,transforming a linear relation between spatial integration and pedestrian flows in mono-functional residential areas, into an exponential relation in mixed use areas. The thesisis that the primary fact is urban spatial configuration. This then gives rise to a patternof space use which makes certain locations more attractive than others for retail. Retailtakes up these locations preferentially, and then becomes an attractor of new trips in itsown right. The result is a multiplier in which configurationally strategic through routesbecome dominant retail aggregations. The result is an emergent correlation between landuse, pedestrian movement and configuration which shows immense stability over time.

The second is the theory of the movement economy (Hillier & Penn, 1992; Hillier,1996; 1997) which proposes that as a by-product of every trip between an origin and adestination, one passes opportunities for interaction and transaction in spaces along theway. It is this we propose that allows for multi-purpose trips, and it is the link betweenurban spatial configuration and movement flows that provides a logic for the dispositionof land uses. There is an additional phenomenon, however, which is recognisable in manydifferent city forms and cultures. This is the property of land use patterns to remainroughly similar as one travels along a street, but to change radically as one turns a corner.The phenomenon appears to hold not only for land uses, but for a range of other aspectsof our experience of urban space; building heights, traffic flows and sound levels all varyin this way. It also appears to hold for quite specific functions within a single land useclass. Thus, Tottenham Court Road in Londons west end is well known for its computerand furniture stores, Denmark Street for music shops and Charlotte Street for restaurants,whilst Oxford Street with its department stores is just around the corner from Bond Streetand South Moulton Street each of which carries an entirely different class of fashion goods.

The disposition of categories of goods in planned retail building interiors, and inplanned developments such as malls often tries to take advantage of the attractive ef-fect of specific brands or categories of goods, however the results of this form of planningare often surprising, with success and failure being hard to account for. In less planned andregulated cultures market buildings can often generate patterns that can be useful to us intrying to understand retail aggregation. Nasreen Hossain studied spontaneous retail devel-opment and market buildings in Dhaka (Hossain, 2000; Hossain & Penn, 1999). Here shedeveloped methods for determining the attractor properties of different retail functions.Critically, she distinguished the main generative functions - what people came to themarket for; shared functions - those that related directly to neighbouring functional uses(such as cloth merchants to tailors) - and suscipient functions - those which were purelyincidental, and which people used since they were there. These functions were establishedby a questionnaire to a sample of shoppers in each market. The category of goods that

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Figure 6: Suscipient retail functions (black) generally are dispersed but cluster at strategiclocations around entrances in Dhaka New Market (image from Hossain, 2000).


acted as generators were found to vary for different markets, however, the categorisationalways existed.

What was more important was that the generative and the suscipient functions werespatialised differently (Figure 6). Generators aggregated together, and could survive somedegree of isolation, often on an upper floor. Suscipient functions dispersed from eachother if they could, but favoured spatially strategic locations - by entrances, stairs orat the intersection of main movement lines, and clustered in greater numbers on theentrance floors. The logic seems simple. Aggregation of a particular retail function allowsthe market as a whole to become an attractor for those shopping for that class of goods.A large number of different outlets will ensure price competition and differentiation instock, design and quality which will allow greater choice. This choice and value is whatmakes the market as a whole attractive for those looking for that class of goods. If one hascome to a particular market building for that class of goods, a locally isolated positionwithin the building will be little deterrent and so these attractor functions do not losemuch by selecting a less than optimal location (within the local spatial environment ofthe market itself). However, once a shopper is there, they move around the building andbecome potential customers for classes of goods that were not their primary reason forcoming. These incidental purchases are purely dependent upon the passing trade and soare sensitive to movement flows and consequently select spatially strategic locations. Theyare also sensitive to competition and so tend to disperse from one another. For a suscipientfunction, being next to a competitor will merely halve the proportion of the passing tradethat you will capture. The same does not necessarily hold for a generative function. Herethe shopper comes looking for the goods, and their choice of vendor will depend ultimatelyon their perceptions of a wide range of factors including choice, quality of service and value(Applebaum, 1968).

6. The spatial logic of the department store

The layout of department stores seems also to be informed by this logic. Department storesbring together complete ranges of specific categories of goods into single departments.These groupings help shoppers compare different brands with different quality and pricepoints. A whole department aims to have the critical mass to act as an attractor foranyone shopping for that class of goods. By bringing several departments together into asingle store they facilitate multi-purpose trips. Other classes of goods, such as perfume,costume jewellery or accessories for example, will largely be impulse purchases, and soare effectively suscipient functions. They tend to be located on the strategic routes fromentrances to escalators. Samia Morsy, in a study of Selfridges in London several years agofound a very high negative degree of correlation between gross profit at points of saleand axial step depth from the entrances. Although this result has yet to be reproduced -detailed point of sale profitability figures are notoriously hard to come by - it is suggestivethat store management actively seeks to optimise location of goods and spatial layout tomaximise profitability (Morsy, 1991).

Department stores adopt a different set of strategies in optimising their sales, but salesmanagers tend to fall into one of two camps. The first follow the dictum: Stack it high- sell it cheap, whilst the second believe that the key to sales lies in footfall past thepoint of sale, and are prepared to invest more in circulation space. A specific exampleof this is given by a recent study of shopper behaviour in a large London department

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Figure 7: Left: Correlation between observed movement mean depth in the VGA (r2 =.58, p < .0001); Right: Correlation between number of transactions and numbers of staticpeople within a buffer of the counter (r2 = .54, p < .0001)

store. In this study we were asked to investigate the effects of congestion on sales andtill receipts. The problem faced by the store owners was simple. The number of shoppersentering the store on a Saturday was double that on a weekday, however the till receiptsonly increased by 60%. It was thought that the problem was due to a reduction in passingtrade within the store caused by congestion reducing movement. In our study we carriedout detailed observations of shopper movement and stopping patterns, following individualcustomers, and observing average movement rates in all parts of the store. We also observedcongestion patterns and browsing and shopping behaviour. All of these data were thenbrought together with information on sales and receipts from the Electronic Point of Sale(EPOS) system, with data on the configuration of the building plan using visibility graphanalysis (VGA, see Turner et al, 2001), and analysed statistically.

Our findings were very clear. The measure of mean depth in the VGA is stronglycorrelated with observed movement flows (Figure 7 left), however the number of itemssold at a point of sale is not directly correlated with movement past, but is correlatedwith static occupancy in its vicinity (Figure 7 right). Further investigation allowed us todevelop a better understanding of what contributed to stopping behaviour, which was thekey to selling goods. Static occupancy was found to be associated with two factors, levelsof movement and the measure of the linear metres of goods on display in the immediatearea.

This was an important finding since the stack it high and sell it cheap camp amongststore managers is founded on the notion that the goods and price competition attractshoppers, whilst the passing trade camp is founded on the notion that movement, andtherefore circulation space, is fundamental. What we found suggests that both camps arein fact correct. A shop needs a constant supply of moving people past its goods, and thespatial layout of the store is a critical component in achieving this, however movementalone does not make a sale. In order to sell one needs to stop people so that they can browseand select what they want to buy. Stopping people depends on the supply of people inthe first place (and so on movement) and on the quantity and range of goods on display,the way they are displayed and how this fits with the customers needs and aspirations.

These findings allowed us to clarify the nature of the problem faced by the storemanagement. First, they were correct that congestion was having an effect; however, theywere wrong about the mechanism involved. It was not that congestion stopped movement


Figure 8: Correlation between Gross Profit per sq m and a fitted variable including Intel-ligibility, mean depth and mean visual field size for all 12 stores (r2 = .77, p < .01)

and so reduced the passing trade. It was something like the opposite: congestion appearedto be stopping people from stopping - the pressure of congestion kept people moving andso interfered with the conversion of passers-by into shoppers.

7. Intelligibility and making search easy

To investigate these mechanisms is inevitably difficult. There is only so much that one canobserve without interfering in the process itself, and it is particularly hard to distinguishbetween those aspects of shopping that are defined by the configuration of the environ-ment, and those that are a property of the individual shopper and their motivations andneeds. One of the approaches currently under development, reported at the last SpaceSyntax Symposium, is the use of software agents with vision of the morphology of theirenvironment to evaluate effects of morphology and different patterns of target clusteringon the time it took agents to find multiple stores. This lets us be experimental in investi-gating emergent processes, but it also allows us to look at individual level motivations - ata very simplified level - and the emergent aggregate level behaviours that result. A specificquestion we have looked at is the relationship between the shoppers experience as some-one who is searching for something, the efficiency with which that search is conducted,and the way that shops are located relative to one another within the urban grid. It turnsout that grid intelligibility has a radical effect on search efficiency for different forms ofaggregation. Street like aggregations become efficient for search as a grid becomes moredisrupted, whilst central clusters are most efficient where the global structure of spaceis intelligible. For multi-purpose shopping trips it was found that both morphology andclustering had direct effects on the efficiency with which agents could search for and finda number of targets (Penn & Turner, 2003; 2004).

Other evidence suggests that intelligibility and the size of visual fields within storesaffects sales and ultimately profit. In a study of the comparative sales figures of a large

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chain of warehouse stores, a sample of 12 stores was analysed using VGA, locations of allcategories of goods and their sales and profit figures were analysed. The statistics werecomplex; however a fitted variable comprising intelligibility, mean size of visual field andmean depth was found to account for a significant proportion of the differences in grossprofit per square meter across the sample of stores (Figure 8). Clearly, there are a range ofother factors such as store location and local demography that may be involved, howeverseems possible that in stores where people go to search for a particular item or list ofgoods, that the intelligibility of the store layout will become a key factor in its success.This may well hold for supermarkets and warehouse stores in general, but there is alleast one highly successful example of a store that has turned a lack of intelligibility toadvantage.

8. Coercive spatial cultures

Most fields of research have what are called phenomena. These are the empirical facts orevents that must be explained. In the field of retailing one such phenomenon is providedby Ikea, the Swedish household furnishings store. Its international growth and success isremarkable, and it has become what is called in the jargon a category killer - a store thatfor the category of household goods and furnishings seems impossible to out compete. Ikeahas developed a formula for retailing that is both unique and really works. However, thereseems to be a paradox. Although people turn out in their thousands to shop at Ikea, asubstantial proportion of those who go claim to hate the experience.

When youre inside an Ikea store, you must come to terms with a near per-manent state of bewilderment: shelves stacked with flat brown boxes labelledwith random codes and names; a yellow road which takes you inexplicablythrough bedrooms when all you wanted was some kitchen handles. And then,then, when your emotional temperature is rising and you can feel a panickyhotness around your ears, you will be faced with Ikeas version of customercare - an underpaid teenager, trained in psychic disengagement wholl tell youtheyre out of stock. The next delivery wont be for two weeks. No, you cantplace an order, youll have to return to the store. That other query? Youllhave to ask someone in bathrooms ... thats five yards down the yellow roadand the queues on your left. (Susie Steiner, 2005)

How is this possible? One of the first rules of retailing is that the customer is alwaysright and that the customer experience is crucial to success. In a recent MSc studyFarah Kazim surveyed the floor plans of the Ikea store in Brent Park, North London,and observed patterns of customer movement and behaviour (Kazim, F., 2004). The storeis arranged in four main areas. When you enter you are immediately taken upstairs tothe showroom. This is the area in which a whole series of room settings - living rooms,bedrooms, dining rooms and kitchens - is on display, along with many smaller householditems and furnishings that you will find on available for purchase in the marketplace. Theshowroom also displays the main types of flat pack furniture that you can either find foryourself in the warehouse section or order for delivery from sales points. The circulationaround the showroom is sinuous, following a single route which twists backwards andforwards, until it eventually returns you to the stairs down to the marketplace. Thesestairs are in fact immediately adjacent to those by which you entered the showroom,


Figure 9: VGA integration in the show room area of Ikea, at Brent, North London (plandue to Farah Kazim).

however the layout of the floor is so disorienting that this is hard to understand. At thebottom of the stairs you enter the marketplace and collect a trolley. The marketplaceis constructed as a series of large rectangular halls each containing a grid of low palletswith merchandise, and broadly differentiated in terms of types of goods on sale. Thehalls are much more visually open than in the showroom, although the route from hallto hall through the marketplace is again sinuous and disorienting. In the marketplacetrolley congestion on the main route is a normal experience; however the effect of this isto encourage you off the main route into the grid of pallets, where the local ringy structureallows you the time to browse. Next, you move through to the high bay warehouse, wherelarger items of flat pack furniture are stored in racks. Finally, the route takes you througha bargain area to the queues for the checkouts, and you emerge into the car park closeto the main entrance.

The experience is one which is at once both highly disorienting, and at the same timeeffective in that there is - it seems - no need to navigate since on the face of it, there islittle or no choice of routes to take. However, a careful study of the plan shows that thereis choice. There are ways through that will take you more or less directly wherever youwant to go, if you can spot them, and if you had any idea about where you wanted to goin the first place. However, for staff and expert shoppers these routes are available. Thisis one of the ingenious things about the floor plan. At a directly spatial level, the kind oflevel at which space syntax analysis usually predicts movement patterns, the floor plan ofthe showroom level appears well structured. It forms a more or less perfect deformed wheel

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Figure 10: Agent simulation using agents with forward facing vision in the show roomarea of Ikea, at Brent, North London (plan due to Farah Kazim).

core with a central hub and spokes of integration radiating in all directions (Figure 9). Butthis well structured core seems to have little to do with what you experience as you movearound the plan. Your experience is almost entirely constrained by where you have comefrom - the single entrance - and the fact that we have forward facing vision. A secondanalysis illustrates the difference. Figure 10 shows the results of an EVAS agent basedsimulation. In this analysis simulated agents with forward facing vision move towards adestination selected at random from their current field of view. Every three steps theirdestination is reselected, again at random, from their current visual field. Figure 10 showsa sinuous route winding through the plan that almost perfectly mirrors the route thatpeople take through the showroom (Figure 11).

A comparison of the two analyses shows a radical discrepancy between the globalintegration core and the simulated result of movement based on locally forward facingviews - the latter giving a local, and perhaps more experientially sensitive, analysis ofspace. In terms of ones experience of the plan, the integration core is actually virtuallyinvisible. The discrepancy between local and global described in this way forms a kind ofunintelligibility that has not been described before.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the disorientation one experiences within a fewmetres of the entrance of the showroom is the result of intentional design. But how doesthis function so far as retailing is concerned? The model seems to be a simple one. Thestrictly sequential nature of Ikea is described in their store guide map where the sinuous


route is simplified into a linear sequence. However although the sequence is linear, theexperience is anything but simple. The role of the showroom is mainly to give the shoppera series of glimpses of aspirational lifestyle settings. These are the counterpart of the roomsetting photographs in the Ikea catalogue - they show you how a range of Ikea productscan be combined to give a series of forms of interior. However, as you move through theshowroom you rapidly become dissociated from everyday life - all views of the externalworld are obscured and even ones sense of direction is removed by the twists and turns ofthe route. At the same time you are shown stage set glimpses of what your life might belike. The effect is more or less subliminal. All this time there is relatively little on offer ofsale. By the time you arrive at the stairs down to the market place youve already spenta long time without buying anything. Here the space is more open and grid like, and youare faced with pallets of goods, many of which you have already seen in a lifelike settingin the showroom, although you may not even be aware of this. Now you can buy.

9. Conclusion: The paradox of submission, dominance and autonomy

Danny Miller has suggested that from an anthropological perspective contemporary retailculture is an act of sacrifice (Miller, 1998). Here I suggest that the Ikea formula goesfurther. By delaying the ability of the shopper to begin to fulfil their mission, at thesame time as disorienting them and dissociating them from everyday life, when eventuallythey are allowed to start buying - they return to the ground level and the trolley ispicked up - the shopper feels licensed to treat themselves. The result is impulse buying -in the region of 67% of purchases in the marketplace are made on impulse (reported inKazim, 2004). One might consider this to be coercive, but here there is an irony. Whilethe structure of space and the shopping experience are both highly contrived, it is hardto avoid the conclusion that the shoppers in Ikea are at least consenting partners in thecontrivance. The concept seems to owe something to the psychology of alternative lifestylesof dominance and submission. Although it seems that the shopper hands over control tothe trader: they follow the prescribed route and accept the disorientation involved; thissubmission is freely given, and can be revoked.

I have argued elsewhere (Penn, 2003) that an unintelligible environment removes au-tonomy from the user - no longer can they predict from local spatial properties wherethey are located in the global system, and so it becomes impossible for them to act in-tentionally. However, in Ikea, the submission is the first part of a two part contract - yougive over personal control, but you trust the store to guide you, and this it does. If youjust follow your nose - to borrow the term from Ruth Conroy-Dalton (2003) - you areguided through the entire store faultlessly. In this sense Ikea is a labyrinth, not a maze.You do not get lost, although you may never know where you are. The second part of thecontract involves the delay to the start of shopping. The shopper submits to the tantalis-ing lifestyle visions of the showroom, but gratification is delayed. Eventually, on returningto the ground level the shopper is allowed to start shopping in the marketplace. Takentogether these provide a highly sophisticated, if manipulative, environment that servesone of the most elementary and primitive of social interfaces.

It is worth asking whether Ikea is unique, or whether it is a just particularly extremeexample of a more generic type of interface. I argue the latter. There is one stage of theshopping trip that all traders agree is crucial. This is getting the shopper to step over thethreshold. A step over the threshold is the first part of the contract between shopper and

40 Alan Penn

Figure 11: The Showroom at Ikea, Brent, showing shopper movement and pause pointstraces (from Kazim, F., 2004).

trader. The threshold itself marks the beginning of the dissociation between the outsideworld and the shopping experience, and at the same time grants some degree of controlto the trader. Granting control forms part of a game. Think of the ritual of bargainingin a Middle Eastern bazaar. The first stage is of engagement of the shopper, sometimesaccomplished by a retained hawker, the second involves stepping over the threshold, thethird viewing the stock and negotiating a price - you never let the trader know which itemyou are interested in, and they never let you know what price they will accept - finally,eased by a glass of chai, a price is agreed. Both parties leave happy - the trader with aprofit, the buyer with the satisfaction of having reduced the price by half.

Here, however, lies the apparent paradox of shopping space. Spatial differentiation isrelated to categories of goods, integration to the movement of people, intelligibility to theability of the shopper to find what they want, whilst a lack of intelligibility and spatialsegregation are related to crossing the threshold and the exchange of power to the trader.Behind the elementary interface lies a complex realm of strategic design choices.

Is Ikea exploitative? I suspect not, just so long as the shopper is fully aware of thenature of the contract and is a consenting partner in the power exchange. It is necessary,however, to consider what the shopper gains from this deal. Ikea goods are simple, welldesigned and offer good value. They convert the material objects with which we surroundourselves and from which we create our identity into commodities of little intrinsic value.The table for just 8 is such a bargain that little emotional or personal value can beattached to it. In this sense the Ikea lifestyle frees the shopper from the weight of personaland cultural value attached to the selection of objects in a materialist world. Perhaps thisis its real attraction.


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