- Grocery stores in Germany are beginning to experiment with more natural light.
- Southwest Germany seems to have become an architectural playground for grocery chain Aldi, in particular.
- Until now, grocery stores worldwide have tended to have few windows, largely due to space and cost constraints.
- Some experts say an environment without natural light helps stores control a shopper's experience more closely.
- But research has found that in stores with more windows, customers and employees felt better, safer, and were able to identify products and people faster.
In the middle of Schwetzingen, near Heidelberg, Germany, you'll find something unusual. It's a new low-rise building: a long window in the front corner, clear lines, and a façade made of square-shaped reinforced concrete slabs.
It's a grocery store.
This Aldi-Süd branch is inspired by Bauhaus architecture à la Mies van der Rohe: a piece of Barcelona Pavilion in small-town Germany.
Eighty kilometers south, in Rastatt, is the next-closest branch of Aldi, which captures more daylight than you're probably used to seeing in a grocery store. Here, it comes from above, through 28 domes set into the wooden ceiling — a style reminiscent of buildings by contemporary Japanese star architect Shigeru Ban.
Aldi is one of the first of its kind to experiment with natural light
Southwest Germany seems to have become an architectural playground for Aldi. It's an unusual step for the discounter, which wasn't keen to experiment until recently. Until now, most of the stores have been built in the classic warehouse and beer tent design, with steep roofs. Daylight: none. It's not only Aldi who has resisted natural light for years, even though lighting incurs up to a third of the electricity costs.
Why are there hardly any windows in supermarkets?
Michaela von Baumgarten works as an architect at the engineering and planning office IPB Finzel in Würzburg, which is responsible for the concepts of the two Aldi branches mentioned above. "Not every client is willing to participate in window experiments," she says. "The reasons for this can be different: use of space, business concept, energy efficiency, consumer behavior."
Another client of the planning office, the drugstore Dm (shot for drogeriemarkt), is giving up daylight as far as possible. "Dm prefers to have only daylight in the entrance area, and only as much as is necessary," says von Baumgarten. In the case of Dm, it is due to the company's lighting concept. "The products are illuminated in all the stores equally by spotlights. In addition, there is always the danger that a customer will no longer buy a product whose packaging may already be somewhat faded by the sun," says von Baumgarten.
Architect: 'Gingerbread melted away at Aldi'
Mathias Streicher, Professor of Management, Marketing, and Tourism at the University of Innsbruck, says space is mainly responsible for the lack of daylight: "Space is extremely expensive, especially in city centers, and must therefore be used to optimum effect. Large vertical windows especially are almost impossible, because most of the space is taken by large shelving areas." Supermarket chains can therefore try out new room concepts, especially in industrial parks, where the market is detached.
Pioneers for innovative markets have long been established in Austria and Switzerland, such as the M-Preis and Migros chains. But also in Germany, other big names such as Edeka, Rewe, or Tegut are driving the change. However, the daylight supermarket is still in a beta phase; the influence of daylight on supermarket operations is always surprising.
Von Baumgarten knows such things. "When the Aldi branch in Rastatt was built, we had carried out extra studies on the incidence of light — how much daylight falls through the windows on the products at what time of the year. The gingerbread melted in the winter after one hour of sunshine."
It had to be retrofitted: protective glass with highly reflective micro-patterns in the cavity between the panes, which allows even less UV radiation and heat to pass through, but at the same time retains its transparency. The technology was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE), which has also been continuously testing the efficiency of the market for two years. After the monitoring phase, the institute drew up an interim balance: The consumption of the lighting systems was reduced by 23% compared with a standard branch due to daylight.
Edeka floods markets with light
While Aldi is mainly testing in Baden, an area in southwest Germany, German supermarket Edeka's laboratory is Bavaria. Here, panoramic windows have already been replaced by concrete walls in several branches, such as Dillingen, Ingolstadt, and Gaimersheim. If strolling through the wine rack comes closer to walking through a loggia, the marketing concept might work out.
Streicher also cites psychological reasons for dispensing with windows: "Sealing off from daylight reduces the feeling of the time of day. This may help to increase the shopping mileage of shoppers," says the marketing expert. "Even weather-related influences — such as weather-related fluctuations in mood that can affect consumer sentiment — can thus be better controlled, for example, because the bad weather disappears from the perception area at least for a short period of time."
However, this assumption is controversial: Supermarkets such as Aldi, Edeka, or Rewe are experimenting with daylight, especially in order to keep customers in stores for longer. The idea behind it: If you are in a black box with artificial light, which is hermetically sealed, you will up and leave. A study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado came to this conclusion back in 2002 — and recommended natural light. Customers and employees felt better, safer, and were able to identify products and people faster. Shopping is also made more experience-oriented by daylight, as in the weekly market.
The next generation of supermarkets could be more like a fancy greenhouse than a barren warehouse.
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