Four design imperatives reshaping Australian retail

Earlier this year, QIC released Redefining Retail, a 60-page report produced with London-based design agency YourStudio. Four design imperatives emerged from the analysis, which was based on store openings across the QIC portfolio over a 24-month period. Each had direct implications for how the industry specifies, procures and delivers retail environments.

1. Experience becomes infrastructure

Retail is increasingly defined by the power of place, and design is responding – briefs today are significantly more ambitious and concept-led than they were five years ago.

Mecca’s 1500sqm ACT flagship at Canberra Centre demonstrates the scale of this shift. The store combines cosmetics retail with a perfumery bar, skincare treatment suites and naturopathic services. The fitout must carry the weight of that ambition across every surface, connecting space and threshold. Delivering on this ambition requires load-bearing design work where joinery, materials, lighting and spatial flow are as critical to function as they are to aesthetics.

Canadian outdoor apparel brand Arc’teryx takes an evocative approach in its Canberra Centre store, using digitised stone facades and artistic recreations of natural elements to conjure the mountains and forests of its Vancouver roots.

Even its dedicated repair and resale space reinforces this environmental narrative, turning sustainability into a tangible brand experience. Executing this kind of storytelling, where every material choice must align with brand values, demands precision from fabrication and installation teams at every stage.

At the most immersive end of the spectrum, Funlab venues Hijinx Hotel and Holey Moley are leading competitive socialising concepts where themed challenge rooms combine custom fabrication, theatrical set-building and integrated AV, all engineered for durability under intensive public use. These are entertainment venues that happen to sit inside shopping centres, demanding expertise that spans set construction and licensed venue craftsmanship.

In each case, the deliverable is a stage, not just a store. For store development professionals this means design interpretation has become as critical as technical execution.

The elaborate fabrication and immersive world-building of Hijinx Hotel’s themed fitout.

2. Designed belonging

Trend forecaster WGSN identified the move away from global sameness as a defining retail trend of the last financial year. For the industry, this shift signals fewer templated rollouts and more projects demanding thoughtful adaptation over precise replication.

We’re seeing this play out in two distinct ways. First, retailers are increasingly willing to adapt signature store designs to reflect local context. For its first shopping centre location at Robina Town Centre, By Charlotte wanted to translate its Sydney boutique sensibility for a community already attuned to the brand’s spiritual aesthetic. IFL Design and Element Shopfitting delivered exactly that. Multisensory storytelling elements – including a prop phone installation with cosmic motifs – invite interaction and create natural pauses. The result is brand connection that feels authentic rather than imposed, aligning with both the product offering and the location’s coastal culture.

Secondly, some retail real estate owners – QIC included – are moving away from rigid shopfront criteria, offering open apertures that let tenants tell their story through merchandising and express their distinct identities more freely. The Hunter & Gatherer fresh food precinct at Pacific Epping exemplifies this approach. When we redeveloped the offering, we supported each retailer in telling their own story. Sacca’s Fine Foods expanded into a larger footprint designed to echo the traditions of Epping’s significant European community, with an open market-style layout bringing together a deli, butcher, gelateria, cafe, florist and bakery under one roof.  Emerging retailer Count Your Chickens, meanwhile, used the open aperture to full effect, with playful signage and a bold yolk yellow and blue palette communicating the brand personality instantly.

Rebel Sport, Eastland – where experience has been designed from the ground up.

3. Circularity moves from novelty to norm

Sustainability has evolved from aspiration to procurement requirement. Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z and millennials reported they will pay more for environmentally sustainable products and services in a 2025 survey by Deloitte. That expectation now appears directly in fitout briefs.

Country Road’s refurbishment at Eastland incorporates benchtops fabricated from recycled yoghurt containers and reclaimed parquetry flooring. At Castle Towers, R.M. Williams focuses on longevity in its finishes, weaving reclaimed and vintage leathers into store furnishings, some sourced from hides over a century old. Aesop’s relocated Canberra Centre store tells a civic story. Finished with reclaimed eucalyptus by local workshop Thor’s Hammer, it features a repurposed marble basin referencing the city’s iconic roundabouts.

In short, retailers have moved beyond token sustainability gestures to embed it as genuine best practice, with Cotton On Group, Super Retail Group and brands such as Country Road all further along this journey than their public profiles might suggest. These material choices demand different supply chains, fabrication processes and creative problem-solving from trade partners. As a result, expertise in sourcing and materials is becoming a competitive advantage, reinforced by procurement policies that prioritise long-term value over short-term savings.

QIC also actively supports repurposing during relocations. When Arnold & Co Jewellers moved within Canberra Centre, they worked with the centre’s architect to repurpose and physically relocate external glazing at another site, demonstrating how collaboration and circular thinking can reduce both waste and costs.

Reclaimed eucalyptus interiors create a sense of place at Aesop, Canberra Centre.

4. Space as community anchor

Our past customer survey data has shown that some 87% of customers in QIC centres visit for multiple reasons¹, blending errands with leisure, services with social time. These are community hub statistics, not traditional retail metrics, and they reshape how we think about store design.

Activewear brand LSKD treats its stores as community infrastructure, hosting exclusive drops, hyper-local events and interactive experiences that cultivate fierce loyalty and build belonging rather than just boosting basket size. That same thinking extends beyond retail into coworking, with Riva Offices at Robina Town Centre, which houses podcast studio infrastructure alongside flexible workspaces, responding to how local entrepreneurs now build their businesses. Community needs evolve quickly, and design that anticipates them earns a different kind of trust and connection.

The relationships that make it possible

Delivering across dramatically different formats – health clinics, designer boutiques, entertainment venues, specialty cafes – depends on partnerships built on trust and proven adaptability.

QIC collaborates with specialists like Span Design, whose dental clinics resemble day spas, and StudioMKZ, whose fast-casual concepts celebrate playful and modern interpretations of Asian street food markets. National retail partners like Rebel Sport and Strand bring the same customer-first instinct to experiential placemaking at scale.

The best shopfitters bring the customer’s perspective to every detail. Echoing the womenswear brand’s commitment to natural materials and elevated detail, ATRU Group’s fitout for Kivari’s Castle Towers boutique makes that tangible – where the quality of finish becomes part of the shopping experience and a lasting tactile memory.

Crafted details define the experience at Kivari’s Castle Towers boutique.

These partnerships reduce risk, accelerate problem-solving and deliver work that performs under real-world conditions. When design studios work with us across multiple centres and projects, they develop understanding that makes each successive collaboration more effective.

Retail fitouts have evolved from replicating templates to creating destinations. The brief has changed, and the most compelling work is emerging from businesses with the material expertise, design intelligence and partnerships to deliver it – and the industry is rising to meet the moment.

¹ Source: QIC & McCrindle, sample across 9 centres, September 2023