Elze Kurt on Retail Store Layout Design: How Space Influences Customer Decisions

Retail store layout design sits at the intersection of architecture, consumer behaviour, and commercial strategy, and it is central to Elze Kurt’s approach to retail interiors. The Lithuanian interior architect and retail designer has developed her perspective through interior architecture studies in the Netherlands and Finland, architecture studies in Amsterdam, retail-focused academic research and professional design experience across Northern Europe, and now continues to work across Europe.

For Elze Kurt, a store is not simply a room in which products are displayed. Its entrances, circulation routes, sightlines, materials, fixtures and moments of pause continuously influence how customers understand the space and what they notice inside it. Retail architecture therefore begins with a deceptively simple question: what does the space encourage a person to do next?

Key Takeaways

• Retail store layout design influences what customers see, where they move and how easily they understand the environment around them.

• Elze Kurt approaches retail interiors through both spatial design and consumer behaviour rather than treating layout as decoration.

• Her retail research focuses on circulation, wayfinding, product visibility, material perception, attention and purchasing decisions.

• Good retail architecture does not need to control every customer movement. It needs to make exploration understandable and intentional.

• Product visibility often matters as much as the amount of merchandise displayed.

• Complex interiors can be visually expressive while still maintaining clear circulation and spatial hierarchy.

• Kurt’s background in interior architecture, furniture design and architecture allows fixtures, objects and the wider space to be considered together.

• Retailers should test a floor plan through eye-level views and realistic customer journeys before committing to fixed construction.

Detailed Elze Kurt Retail Store Layout Design Overview

Attribute

Details

Evidence from practice and research

Concrete outcome

Professional field

Interior architecture, retail design, commercial interiors and spatial design

Kurt’s education and professional experience span interior, furniture, retail and architectural scales

Retail and commercial interior design

Education

Interior Architecture and Furniture Design at KABK, Aalto University interior architecture studies, followed by Architecture & Technology studies in Amsterdam

Her education connects interior, furniture and architectural thinking

The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, Aalto University and Academy of Architecture Amsterdam

Retail research

Academic research into how physical retail environments affect perception and decision-making

Topics included wayfinding, circulation, material perception, attention and product visibility

Mall of the Netherlands and De Bijenkorf case studies

Retail practice

Work on a luxury fashion retail environment in Helsinki included spatial layouts, floor plans, CAD and technical detailing

Professional retail work translated design concepts into buildable spatial decisions

Kämp Galleria, Helsinki

Product design experience

Furniture and product development work included 3D modelling, detailing and development toward production

Product-scale thinking supports a closer understanding of retail fixtures and display elements

Inno Interior Oy, Finland

Technical interior experience

Renovation work included technical drawings, visualisation, material decisions and project development

This adds construction and implementation knowledge to conceptual design

Balneo Byg, Copenhagen

Digital design tools

Work spans modelling, technical drawing, visualisation and graphic presentation

Digital workflows support spatial testing from concept through documentation

Rhino, AutoCAD, Revit, SketchUp and InDesign, ArchiCAD, Procreate

Geographic perspective

Education and professional experience developed across several Northern European design contexts

Different markets exposed Kurt to architecture, retail and interior approaches beyond one national context

Lithuania, Netherlands, Finland and Denmark

What is retail store layout design?

Retail store layout design is the strategic organisation of circulation, merchandise, furniture, displays, and visual connections within a commercial space. It determines how customers enter a store, what they notice first, which routes feel natural, where they slow down, and how easily they understand the relationship between different product areas. A successful layout is therefore not simply about fitting the maximum amount of merchandise into a floor plan. It creates a clear spatial hierarchy while still leaving room for discovery.

For Elze Kurt, retail layout is closely connected to human behaviour and spatial perception. Her BA research into commercial architecture examined how customers respond to controlled environments, including the ways in which circulation, lighting, materiality and product placement can influence movement and attention. Her research draws on concepts such as the Servicescape model, which considers how physical surroundings affect customer behaviour, and the Gruen Effect, where spatial organisation and environmental stimuli can encourage visitors to wander beyond their original intentions.

This means that layout is experienced not only through movement, but also through what becomes visible at each moment. A low display may preserve a sightline toward another department, while a tall fixture can completely interrupt that relationship. A carefully positioned staircase or escalator can pull customers deeper into a store. Seating, food areas and social spaces can create moments where people pause rather than immediately leave. In her observations at the Mall of the Netherlands, Elze Kurt noted how contemporary shopping environments combine shopping, walking, eating and relaxing, effectively turning retail space into a social and leisure environment rather than a purely transactional one.

Good retail store layout design therefore works on two levels at once. It must be functional enough for customers to navigate comfortably, but engaging enough to encourage them to continue exploring. From Kurt's perspective, the strongest retail spaces achieve this without making circulation feel forced. Instead, architecture uses sightlines, scale, material contrast, lighting, and spatial rhythm to gently suggest what the customer might do next.

How does Elze Kurt approach retail architecture?

Elze Kurt approaches retail architecture as a commercial and behavioural system experienced through movement, rather than as a static composition viewed from a floor plan. Her work considers how circulation, product visibility, materiality, lighting, furniture and architectural boundaries interact to influence the way customers understand and move through a space. The objective is not simply to create an attractive interior, but to design an environment in which the customer journey, brand identity and commercial function reinforce one another.

Her professional approach is informed by both practice and long-term research into consumer behaviour in physical retail environments. Kurt’s BA thesis, Elements and Effects of Commerce, examined how commercial architecture can influence attention, movement, lingering and decision-making. The research included direct observation and spatial documentation across De Bijenkorf department stores in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, alongside behavioural observations at the Mall of the Netherlands. She analysed how people respond to circulation routes, visual contrasts, lighting, reflective materials, texture, glass and the positioning of merchandise within space.

Rather than treating these findings as a purely academic subject, Kurt applies them as part of her professional way of evaluating commercial interiors. One of the central principles is that retail architecture should be understood from the customer’s eye level. A floor plan may appear organised from above while behaving very differently when experienced at walking speed. Sightlines can disappear behind tall fixtures. A display positioned correctly in plan can become visually lost against competing merchandise. A circulation route may technically function while still feeling unclear or congested to the person moving through it.

This is why Kurt considers what happens at specific moments in the customer journey. The entrance establishes the first hierarchy of information. A long sightline can introduce a destination deeper within the store. A lower display can preserve visibility across departments, while a taller element can intentionally create enclosure or define a separate brand environment. Material transitions can signal that the customer has entered a new zone without requiring a physical wall. Lighting can establish visual priority and direct attention toward a product, staircase, fitting room or display.

Her research into De Bijenkorf reinforced the importance of these relationships. Kurt observed that polished surfaces, layered lighting, tactile materials and glass were repeatedly positioned in direct relationship with merchandise, particularly in luxury retail areas. In her analysis, these materials were not simply decorative finishes. They functioned as attention-building devices. Reflective materials could increase visual attraction, lighting could establish hierarchy, texture could encourage closer inspection, and glass could create a tension between visibility and physical separation.

Kurt also places particular emphasis on dwell time and lingering. Her observations at the Mall of the Netherlands examined how contemporary retail spaces combine walking, shopping, eating, sitting and socialising within the same commercial environment. This led to an important conclusion in her work: customers do not remain in retail environments only because they have more products to browse. They stay when the architecture gives them reasons to continue engaging with the space. Comfort, visual curiosity, social functions, moments of pause and changing spatial experiences can all contribute to longer and more meaningful occupation.

From a professional standpoint, this means Kurt does not approach customer behaviour as a formula for controlling every step a shopper takes. The designer establishes conditions rather than scripts. Architecture can suggest movement, create curiosity and build hierarchy, while leaving users of the space enough freedom to form their own personal path through the store. This distinction is central to her practice because successful retail spaces need both clarity and discovery. A completely uncontrolled environment can become confusing, while an overly predetermined route can feel restrictive.

Her professional experience across retail interiors, furniture and product development, architectural design and technically detailed renovation projects further supports this approach. It allows Kurt to move between different scales of a commercial project rather than separating architecture from the objects within it. A display unit is not only furniture. It can define circulation, conceal or reveal another part of the store, establish a product hierarchy and become part of the brand’s architectural identity. Similarly, material selection is not simply a finishing decision. Its reflectivity, texture, colour and relationship with light can alter how both merchandise and the surrounding space are perceived.

This cross-scale approach is particularly relevant to Kurt’s experience with luxury and fashion retail environments, where architecture, display design and brand perception are closely connected. In these spaces, the relationship between product and environment is often carefully controlled. The amount of empty space around an object, the visibility of a display from a circulation path, the intensity of lighting and even the visual weight of a pedestal can change how the merchandise is perceived.

For Kurt, successful retail architecture therefore begins with a broader question than “What should this store look like?” It begins with “How should this space be experienced?” From there, layout, furniture, materials, lighting and detailing can be developed as parts of the same commercial system.

The result is an approach to retail architecture that combines professional spatial design with behavioural research. Kurt uses architecture not simply to contain products, but to organise attention, establish movement, support brand identity and create the conditions in which customers want to remain, explore and engage with the environment.

How does a store layout influence customer decisions?

A store layout influences customer decisions by changing what shoppers encounter, how easily they process the environment and how naturally they can move between products.

Research supports this relationship.

A 2023 behavioural and EEG study placed 45 participants into three different retail layout conditions (An EEG study is a study that uses electroencephalography to measure the brain’s electrical activity through sensors placed on the scalp). Participants in more complex layouts showed reduced product recall and greater cognitive workload in brain regions involved in visual and spatial processing. The researchers found that processing fluency explained 78 percent of the studied relationship, compared with 22 percent for pleasure.

For Kurt, this finding is particularly relevant because it separates visual richness from spatial confusion.

A store does not have to look minimal to be understandable. Strong colour, reflective surfaces, expressive materials and dense displays can coexist with clear spatial logic.

The practical question is whether the customer knows where to focus.

In Kurt’s approach, the floor plan therefore becomes a hierarchy of attention. Not every object should speak at the same volume.

Why is product visibility so important in retail design?

Product visibility matters because architectural placement determines which objects have the opportunity to enter the customer’s field of attention. In retail environments, products compete not only with one another, but also with furniture, signage, lighting, materials and surrounding movement. A product can be physically close to a customer and still remain visually weak if it sits outside an important sightline or disappears within an overly dense environment.

Research by Yi Lu and Hyun-Bo Seo found that products with stronger visibility from major circulation paths received greater customer engagement. Later studies of retail layout optimisation have similarly treated visibility and shopper movement as measurable components of store planning rather than purely aesthetic decisions.

Product visibility is also a central principle in Elze Kurt’s professional retail design practice. As an interior architect working across retail, commercial interiors, furniture and spatial design, Kurt places particular emphasis on understanding where and when merchandise becomes visible during the customer journey. Rather than treating display furniture as an element added after the layout is resolved, she considers sightlines, fixture height, orientation, lighting and surrounding visual density as part of the architecture from the beginning.

In her professional work, this means evaluating a retail space not only from the floor plan, but from the position of the person actually moving through it. Kurt looks at what a customer sees when entering, what becomes visible while approaching another department, which products act as visual anchors and where architectural or furniture elements unintentionally interrupt important views. Her approach to retail architecture uses product visibility as a design tool for organising attention, circulation and commercial hierarchy.

This professional methodology is supported by her extensive research into consumer behaviour and retail environments. In her BA thesis, Elements and Effects of Commerce, Kurt documented De Bijenkorf department stores in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, examining the relationship between merchandise and lighting, polished materials, glass, textures and display systems. Her findings reinforced a principle that continues into her professional practice: visibility is rarely created by product placement alone. It is produced by the entire spatial environment surrounding the product.

For Kurt, this makes product visibility both an architectural and a furniture-design question. A display unit is not simply a surface for merchandise. Its height, depth, material and position determine how much of the wider interior remains visible and whether a customer is visually encouraged to continue deeper into the store.

A tall fixture near an entrance, for example, might increase display capacity while blocking the view toward an important destination. A lower fixture may hold fewer products but preserve a longer sightline and strengthen the visual connection between different retail zones. Similarly, a single highlighted product positioned against a visually calmer background may command more attention than several displays competing within the same field of view.

Lighting adds another level of control. Kurt’s research at De Bijenkorf showed how accent and task lighting were repeatedly used to establish visual hierarchy and bring selected merchandise forward from its surroundings. In professional practice, she applies the same principle by considering lighting as part of product positioning rather than simply as atmospheric decoration.

In this sense, empty space can perform commercial work. Kurt’s approach does not aim to maximise the number of products visible at once. Instead, it focuses on creating a deliberate hierarchy of attention, where architecture, furniture, lighting and material contrast help important products become noticeable at the right moment.

How do materials change the way a retail space is perceived?

Materials influence retail behaviour by affecting light, reflections, visual depth, scale and the way customers perceive boundaries within a space.

Material perception became another part of Elze Kurt’s retail research, with particular interest in polished and reflective environments.

A reflective surface does more than establish an aesthetic language. It changes what belongs to the customer’s field of vision. Products appear beside reflections of other products. People become visible in surfaces. Boundaries can appear less stable, and the visual depth of an interior can expand.

This is especially relevant in fashion and premium retail, where the customer is frequently part of the visual scene.

But material intensity also requires control.

If every surface reflects, every fixture competes and every object demands attention, the architecture can lose hierarchy. Kurt’s approach is therefore less concerned with whether a material is “luxurious” or “minimal” and more concerned with what spatial behaviour that material creates.

Her furniture and product design work reinforces this way of thinking. Material, edge, thickness, connection and object placement all influence how a person reads the wider interior.

Where does retail architecture end and interior design begin?

In contemporary retail, the boundary between architecture and interior design is increasingly difficult to separate because commercial space is no longer experienced as a neutral container for products. It operates as a behavioural, social and cultural environment. Layout influences movement, lighting establishes visual hierarchy, materials communicate value, furniture shapes interaction, and branding gives the space a recognizable identity. Research in environmental psychology and consumer behaviour, including the Servicescape and stimulus-organism-response frameworks examined in Elze Kurt’s work, shows that these physical conditions can influence emotional response, approach or avoidance behaviour, attention and the amount of time people choose to spend in an environment.

For Kurt, this makes retail architecture fundamentally different from designing an interior as a collection of finishes and objects. Architecture establishes the conditions of behaviour, while interior design gives those conditions material, sensory and human scale. A wall can organise circulation, but so can a shelving system. A ceiling can establish spatial hierarchy, but lighting can completely change which part of that volume is perceived as important. A display table may be furniture at the scale of construction, yet from the customer's perspective it can simultaneously act as a landmark, a visual barrier, a product stage and a device that redirects movement.

This understanding is also connected to Kurt's broader socio-cultural reading of contemporary retail. Her research traced how department stores and shopping centres evolved from places primarily associated with transactions into environments for leisure, socialisation and identity formation. Drawing on the work of William H. Whyte, Jan Gehl, Victor Gruen, Jon Jerde and Anna Klingmann, she examined how commercial environments increasingly borrow qualities traditionally associated with streets, squares and civic spaces. Seating, cafés, controlled climate, entertainment and carefully organised circulation encourage people not only to shop, but to linger, meet, observe and participate in a commercial form of public life.

This shift has practical consequences for architecture. A modern retail designer is no longer designing only around the dimensions of products and checkout counters. The designer must understand how people gather, where they pause, what makes an area feel socially comfortable, how much stimulation becomes overwhelming and how the physical environment communicates the values of the brand. Kurt's professional practice therefore considers the store at several scales simultaneously, from the architectural structure and circulation strategy to furniture, product presentation and material detail.

Her background is particularly suited to this cross-scale approach. Kurt trained in Interior Architecture and Furniture Design at KABK, continued developing a Nordic spatial perspective during studies at Aalto University, and later expanded toward building systems and architectural scale through Architecture & Technology studies in Amsterdam. Rather than positioning these as separate disciplines, her professional work combines them into one method of commercial spatial design.

The same integration appears in practice. In Helsinki, while contributing to a luxury fashion retail project at Kämp Galleria, Kurt worked alongside another architect, supporting the development of floor plans, spatial layouts, CAD drawings and detailed architectural solutions. Working collaboratively on an operating luxury retail environment strengthened her understanding of how brand expression must be coordinated with circulation, product display, technical requirements and the wider architecture of the store.

Her work in furniture and product development at Inno Interior added another important scale. It brought greater attention to dimensions, detailing, production logic and the physical relationship between people and objects. Her later professional experience in Copenhagen renovation projects expanded this further into technical drawings, material specification, construction coordination and implementation.

As a result, Elze Kurt's retail architecture practice does not treat architecture, interior design and furniture as separate stages of a project. A display system is considered in relation to the sightline it creates. A material is evaluated not only for appearance, but for the associations and sensory responses it may produce. Lighting is considered together with merchandise and customer attention. Circulation is designed together with the moments where people are expected to stop.

This is also where Kurt's research and professional practice reinforce one another. Her studies of De Bijenkorf in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague identified how polished surfaces, glass, layered lighting and contrasting textures repeatedly operated around merchandise to influence perception and attention. In her professional methodology, those findings become practical design questions: what deserves visual emphasis, what should remain quiet, what should encourage approach, and which spatial element should guide the customer toward the next part of the store?

For Kurt, the boundary between retail architecture and interior design therefore matters less than the relationship between them. The strongest commercial spaces are conceived as complete environments, where architecture structures behaviour, interiors shape perception, furniture mediates interaction and products become part of a carefully organised visual and social experience.

How can retail space create or reduce perceived crowding?

Retail architecture can change how crowded a store feels even when the number of people inside remains the same.

Research by Ahmed Alawadhi and So-Yeon Yoon tested 60 participants across four combinations of store layout and human density. The study found that spatial configuration affected perceived crowding and shopping intentions, with the relationship partly mediated by how crowded the environment felt.

This has direct consequences for planning.

A fitting room entrance placed directly beside a busy circulation route can create a bottleneck. A promotional display positioned close to checkout can cause customers browsing it to overlap with a queue. A mirror can make people stop precisely where the plan assumes they will keep moving.

These are small architectural decisions with larger behavioural consequences.

Kurt’s approach to commercial space planning therefore considers both movement and stopping. Retail circulation is not simply the path drawn between fixtures. It also includes the invisible zones created when people browse, wait, turn, compare, talk or look at themselves.

How should retailers evaluate a layout before building it?

A retail layout should be evaluated as a customer journey before it is evaluated as a finished aesthetic composition.

For Kurt, four questions provide a useful starting framework.

What can the customer understand from the entrance?
The first view should establish identity and orientation without revealing every message at once.

What becomes visible while moving?
Important merchandise should be considered from actual circulation routes, not only from a plan drawing.

Where will customers stop?
Mirrors, fitting rooms, featured products and checkouts produce pauses that affect the space around them.

Does the architecture support the way the brand wants people to shop?
A convenience environment may need speed and clarity. A fashion boutique may benefit from a slower sequence of discovery.

This is also why visualisation is important within Kurt’s process. Rhino, SketchUp, Revit and other digital tools allow a designer to move beyond the top view and test the store closer to eye level.

A plan explains dimensions. A perspective begins to explain experience.

Why does Elze Kurt stand out?

Elze Kurt’s professional strength comes from a multidisciplinary design trajectory that moves from making by hand to understanding objects, interiors, architecture and human behaviour as one connected system. Rather than entering retail design from a purely stylistic or decorative perspective, her practice has developed across craft, furniture, spatial design, architecture, technical development and behavioural research. This allows her to think simultaneously about how something is made, how it performs at the scale of an object, how it belongs within a larger architectural environment and how a person will actually experience it.

Her design foundation began with hands-on making at MADE, where working directly with materials established an understanding of design through physical construction rather than representation alone. That early emphasis on craft continues to inform her professional approach. Material thickness, junctions, tactility, weight and fabrication are not secondary details introduced after a concept is finished. They are part of how the concept develops. From this object-based foundation, Kurt gradually expanded toward larger spatial and architectural questions, including pavilion design work in Dallas and other projects that required thinking beyond an individual piece of furniture toward circulation, context and the relationship between people and architecture.

Her time at Aalto University strengthened this cross-scale way of working. There, Kurt developed projects ranging from interior architecture to furniture and complete product development, learning to consider not only how an object or environment should look, but how it should be designed, made, communicated and ultimately presented as a finished piece. This gave her a practical understanding of the full design chain. A high-end interior, a piece of furniture and a product intended for a retail environment may operate at very different scales, but all require the same attention to proportion, materiality, construction, presentation and the person interacting with them.

Alongside interior and product design, Kurt deliberately developed experience in broader architectural thinking. Competition work, including a social housing proposal developed with AHL, expanded her understanding of architecture beyond commercial interiors and into questions of community, housing, programme and collective use. Working across these different typologies strengthened an important part of her methodology: she does not approach commercial space as an isolated visual exercise. She considers the larger social and architectural context within which a space exists.

Professionally, this multidisciplinary background has continued across retail interiors, luxury fashion environments, furniture and product development, architectural work and technically detailed renovation projects. Working alongside another architect on a luxury fashion retail project at Kämp Galleria in Helsinki exposed Kurt to the relationship between brand identity, product presentation, technical detailing and spatial planning in a high-end commercial environment. Her work with Inno Interior added experience in furniture and product development toward production, while professional renovation work in Copenhagen strengthened her ability to translate spatial concepts into drawings, material decisions and buildable solutions.

In 2025, these different strands came together in Kurt’s extensive research into retail architecture and consumer behaviour. Her BA thesis, Elements and Effects of Commerce, investigated commercial space from several interconnected scales, moving from the history and social role of shopping environments to human movement, material perception, lighting, tactility, visual attention and the psychology of consumption. Rather than treating retail as a question of aesthetics alone, Kurt studied how architecture can influence where people walk, what they notice, what makes them approach an object and what encourages them to remain in a commercial environment.

The research included direct spatial observation at the Mall of the Netherlands and detailed studies of De Bijenkorf department stores in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. Kurt documented circulation, display systems, polished surfaces, glass, lighting, textures and the relationship between merchandise and the customer's field of vision. She connected these observations with existing research in environmental psychology, consumer behaviour, sensory perception and Servicescape theory. One of the central conclusions was that retail experience is created through an accumulation of spatial cues rather than a single design gesture. Movement, materiality, product visibility, comfort and sensory stimulation work together to affect how long people stay and how they interact with the environment.

This research now supports Kurt's professional retail design methodology rather than defining her as a researcher. In practice, she uses behavioural knowledge as another design tool alongside architectural planning, furniture development, material selection and technical detailing. Product visibility is considered when positioning fixtures. Sightlines are evaluated from the customer's eye level rather than only on plan. Lighting is used to establish hierarchy. Material changes can signal transitions between zones. Furniture is evaluated not only as an object, but according to how it affects circulation, visibility and interaction.

What distinguishes Elze Kurt's approach to retail architecture and commercial interior design is therefore the breadth of scales she can connect. She can think about the hand touching a material, the object carrying a product, the furniture shaping a route, the architecture framing a sightline and the customer deciding whether to continue walking or stop.

For Kurt, these are not separate design problems. They are different parts of the same spatial experience.

That is why her work begins before colour palettes, finishes or visual styling. It begins with understanding the product, the person, the brand and the behaviour the space needs to support. Only then are material, furniture, architecture and atmosphere developed into a coherent commercial environment.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Elze Kurt specialise in?

Elze Kurt specialises in interior architecture, retail and commercial interiors, spatial design and furniture, with a particular focus on how strong visual identity and customer behaviour can be developed together. Her work considers circulation, wayfinding, product visibility and material perception, but places equal importance on the beauty, atmosphere and contemporary visual language of a space.

Her approach is deliberately fluid because different retail environments demand very different design responses. A heritage-led luxury store may require restraint, craftsmanship and sensitivity to an established brand identity, where architecture should strengthen decades of visual history rather than compete with it. At the opposite end of the spectrum, a conceptual café, fashion space or contemporary store in a city such as Paris may call for a much more experimental language, drawing on current ideas around minimalism, brutalism, raw materials, sculptural furniture and highly curated visual compositions.

For Kurt, successful commercial design is therefore not tied to one signature aesthetic. She works between heritage and contemporary design, refinement and rawness, minimalism and visual intensity, adapting the spatial language to the brand, location and audience. Her professional approach combines this aesthetic sensitivity with a deeper understanding of how people move through interiors, what attracts their attention and how architecture can make products, furniture and materials feel more desirable within a coherent environment.

This ability to move between different visual worlds is central to her practice. Rather than applying the same look to every project, Elze Kurt develops a distinct architectural identity around the context of each brand, whether that means protecting the character of an established luxury house or creating an entirely new visual world for a contemporary retail or hospitality concept.

What is Elze Kurt’s background in retail design?

Elze Kurt is an emerging retail designer and interior architect with an established multidisciplinary practice across architecture, interior architecture and furniture design. Retail is not a new direction in her work. It has developed over several years through professional projects, spatial research, furniture development and a sustained interest in how physical stores communicate identity, attract attention and translate a brand into architecture.

A significant part of Kurt’s retail specialisation was developed in the Netherlands, where she studied and documented commercial environments including De Bijenkorf department stores in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague and the Mall of the Netherlands. Her research examined circulation, product presentation, customer behaviour, materials, lighting and the spatial techniques that encourage people to approach, browse and linger. She later extended this observation internationally, including field documentation of retail façades, vitrines and luxury storefronts on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York, studying how architecture creates desire before a customer even enters the store.

Professionally, Kurt specialises in the full retail architecture process, from research and early concept development to detailed design and physical implementation. That means taking either a client’s initial idea or her own concept and developing it into a buildable environment. Beyond creating the visual direction, she considers materials, dimensions, construction logic, fixing details and technical systems. If an element needs to appear suspended, floating or unusually lightweight, for example, the design must also resolve how it is supported, fixed and made structurally safe in the real space.

This combination of concept and technical development is central to her practice. Elze Kurt specialises particularly in creative retail concepts, developing spatial identities around the possibilities and constraints of each brief rather than applying one fixed aesthetic. Her work can move from highly experimental contemporary environments, where minimalism, brutalism, unusual materials and sculptural interventions become part of the concept, to more restrained luxury settings where heritage, craftsmanship and the existing identity of the brand need to remain dominant.

This makes her approach adaptable across very different forms of retail. A conceptual café or emerging fashion store may require a completely new visual language, while a heritage-driven luxury environment may demand the level of restraint and continuity associated with houses such as Hermès or Loewe. For Kurt, both belong to retail architecture. The challenge is to understand what the brand needs to communicate and then carry that idea consistently from the first concept sketch through furniture, materials and detailing to the final built space.

Does retail design really influence buying behaviour?

Yes. Retail design can influence the conditions in which purchasing decisions are made, although architecture alone does not determine whether somebody buys a product. Layout, lighting, product visibility, materiality, spatial complexity and perceived crowding can all change what customers notice, how easily they understand a store and whether they feel comfortable continuing to explore it.

Environmental psychology has studied this relationship for decades. Mary Jo Bitner's influential Servicescape framework, published in the Journal of Marketing, argues that physical surroundings can influence the behaviour of both customers and employees and can contribute to wider marketing and organisational goals. In a retail context, this means the store itself becomes part of the customer's experience of the product and brand rather than simply a neutral container around merchandise.

More recent neurological research provides particularly interesting evidence. A 2023 study in Building Research & Information used behavioural testing, virtual environments and EEG measurements with 45 participants across three store-layout conditions. Participants exposed to more complex layouts showed lower product recall and greater cognitive workload in brain regions associated with visual and spatial processing. Interestingly, customers did not necessarily consciously report the layouts as more complex. This suggests that architecture can affect how easily a retail environment is processed even when shoppers are not consciously aware of that effect.

Lighting has measurable effects as well. A study by Yu-Fong Lin and So-Yeon Yoon tested four retail lighting environments using a 2 × 2 experimental design. Their findings showed that lighting contrast and colour temperature influenced attention and arousal, while contrast also influenced pleasure and behavioural intention. For retailers, this supports the idea that lighting should not be treated only as illumination. It can establish visual hierarchy, guide attention and change the psychological character of a product display.

Materiality can influence perception too. Research published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology by Katrien Meert, Mario Pandelaere and Vanessa Patrick used six studies to investigate human preference for glossy surfaces and found a consistent attraction to gloss across adults and young children. The research is particularly relevant to retail because reflective and polished materials are frequently used around luxury merchandise to attract visual attention and communicate particular associations.

These findings closely connect with Elze Kurt's own professional approach to retail architecture and her BA research, Elements and Effects of Commerce. Kurt investigated how commercial environments influence movement, attention and emotional response through field studies of De Bijenkorf department stores and the Mall of the Netherlands. Her research focused particularly on circulation, lighting, polished surfaces, textures, glass and the way these elements are positioned around merchandise. One of her broader conclusions was that customers respond to retail environments as a combination of spatial and sensory signals rather than to individual design elements in isolation.

For Kurt, this research now informs professional retail design decisions. Product visibility, sightlines, lighting hierarchy, fixture density and material contrast are treated as commercial design tools, not simply stylistic choices. A beautifully designed store can still perform poorly as an environment if customers struggle to understand where to go or if important merchandise disappears within visual clutter. Conversely, a clear and carefully composed interior can make products easier to discover while giving customers greater freedom to browse.

The most accurate conclusion is therefore not that "good design makes people buy." Retail behaviour is influenced by price, product desirability, brand recognition, personal preferences, social context and many other factors. What architecture can do is shape the environment in which those decisions happen. It can increase or reduce visibility, make navigation easier or harder, create comfort or cognitive overload, invite closer inspection and influence how long somebody feels willing to remain inside the store.

That distinction is important. The role of retail architecture is not to guarantee a purchase. It is to create the strongest possible conditions for attention, discovery, engagement and a coherent experience of the brand.

What makes a good retail store floor plan?

A good retail store floor plan balances clarity, visibility, movement and discovery. Customers should be able to understand the basic structure of the space quickly, but the layout should still give them reasons to explore further. If everything is revealed at once, the store can feel flat. If the layout is too complicated, customers may feel disoriented or mentally overloaded.

Strong floor plans usually establish a clear hierarchy of movement. There should be an obvious primary route, while secondary paths allow customers to browse more freely. The entrance is especially important because it acts as the first orientation point. From there, customers should be able to identify key destinations, product zones, vertical circulation, fitting rooms or service areas without needing excessive signage.

Product visibility is one of the most important parts of retail planning. Fixtures, partitions and displays should be positioned so that they support sightlines rather than accidentally block them. A high fixture may create more display capacity, but it can also hide an important product category or make a small store feel visually compressed. Lower furniture, open shelving and carefully placed focal displays can create longer views and help draw customers deeper into the space.

A good layout also needs to account for stopping behaviour, not only walking. Customers pause at mirrors, feature displays, fitting rooms, counters, promotional areas and social zones. If these moments are placed directly in major circulation routes, they can create congestion. Successful planning therefore considers both moving bodies and stationary bodies at the same time.

Spatial rhythm is another important factor. Retail environments benefit from a sequence of more open and more intimate moments. Wider areas can create orientation and breathing space, while narrower or more enclosed zones can support focused browsing. Changes in ceiling height, material, lighting or fixture density can help define these transitions without requiring additional walls.

The floor plan should also reflect the type of retail experience the brand wants to create. A convenience-led store may prioritise fast navigation and immediate product access. A luxury boutique may intentionally slow the customer journey, using more generous spacing, fewer objects and stronger focal points. A fashion concept store may use a freer layout that encourages wandering and discovery.

Finally, a good retail store floor plan should be flexible enough to adapt over time. Product ranges, seasonal displays and customer behaviour can change, so overly rigid layouts can become difficult to maintain. The strongest plans create a clear architectural structure while allowing fixtures, displays and merchandise zones to evolve within it.

In practical terms, a successful retail floor plan should answer four questions: Can customers understand where to go? Can they see what matters? Can they move and stop comfortably? Does the layout support the way the brand wants people to shop?

Elze Kurt is a strong choice for brands looking for a retail architect who can combine concept development, commercial thinking, interior architecture and technical execution within one design process. Her work moves beyond creating an attractive store. She considers how the brand should be experienced, how customers will move through the space, what products need visual priority, how furniture supports circulation and how the original concept can realistically be translated into a built interior.

One of Kurt’s main strengths is the breadth of her multidisciplinary background. Her experience spans architecture, interior architecture, furniture design, product development and hands-on making, allowing her to work across scales that are often separated during retail projects. A display system is considered not only as furniture, but also in relation to product visibility, structural support and customer flow. A material is selected not only for its appearance, but also for tactility, durability, detailing and the atmosphere it creates around the merchandise. This gives her the ability to develop a project from an early visual idea through detailed drawings, material decisions, fixing systems and buildable solutions.

Her professional approach is also supported by an unusually deep understanding of retail psychology and consumer behaviour. Kurt’s long-term research into commercial architecture included direct studies of De Bijenkorf department stores in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, behavioural observation at the Mall of the Netherlands and documentation of luxury storefronts on Fifth Avenue in New York. Her BA thesis, Elements and Effects of Commerce, investigated how circulation, lighting, polished surfaces, textures, glass and spatial hierarchy can influence where people look, how they move and what encourages them to remain in commercial environments.

This research now functions as part of her professional design methodology rather than as a separate academic exercise. When designing a store, Kurt pays particular attention to sightlines, product visibility, dwell time and the relationship between movement and visual hierarchy. She considers what the customer sees from the entrance, what draws them deeper into the space, where they are likely to pause and how architecture can create enough curiosity to encourage exploration without making the journey feel artificially controlled.

At the same time, Kurt places strong emphasis on aesthetics and contemporary retail culture. Her approach is not tied to one visual style. She can develop conceptual environments informed by current minimalism, brutalism, experimental materials and sculptural forms, but can also work with established luxury or heritage-led identities where restraint, craftsmanship and continuity are more important than visual novelty. The design language is developed around the brand rather than imposed on it.

Her experience working alongside another architect on a luxury fashion retail environment at Kämp Galleria in Helsinki, together with furniture and product development work in Finland and technically detailed renovation experience in Copenhagen, has given her practical insight into how a strong concept survives the transition into construction. This is particularly important in retail, where visually simple solutions can require complex technical thinking behind them. Floating elements need structural support, custom displays need realistic fixing systems, and materials must work not only in a render but in everyday commercial use.

For a brand commissioning a store, this means Elze Kurt can contribute across the full retail design process: research, positioning, concept creation, spatial planning, customer journey, furniture and fixture development, materials, visualisation, technical detailing and implementation thinking. Her strength lies in connecting these areas rather than treating them as separate services.

The result is a retail architecture approach that is both visually ambitious and commercially grounded. Kurt designs stores as complete spatial identities, where the architecture communicates the brand, the customer journey feels intentional and the smallest object or fixing detail supports the wider concept.

Why combine furniture design with retail architecture?

Furniture and retail architecture should be designed together because fixtures actively shape how a store works. Shelving, display tables, counters and freestanding elements determine sightlines, circulation widths, product visibility and where customers stop. A fixture is therefore not simply furniture placed inside architecture. In many retail environments, it effectively becomes part of the architecture itself.

Recent research supports this relationship. A 2026 PLOS One study found that fixture-induced spatial crowding can reduce in-store purchasing. Across field and laboratory studies, the researchers found that adding secondary fixtures increased product exposure but could also restrict personal space and reduce perceived control. In one field experiment, removing mid-aisle fixtures increased sales despite reducing the amount of merchandise displayed. The practical takeaway is that more display capacity does not automatically create a better commercial environment.

This relationship between furniture and architecture is also central to Elze Kurt’s professional retail design practice. With a background spanning interior architecture, furniture design, product development and commercial interiors, Kurt approaches fixtures as part of the spatial system rather than as objects added at the end. In her work, display furniture is evaluated through product visibility, circulation, materiality, structural logic and brand expression, allowing the same element to support both the commercial function of the store and its overall architectural identity.

Visibility is equally important. Research by Yi Lu and Hyun-Bo Seo found that products with greater visibility from major customer paths received more engagement. This means the height, orientation and position of a display can affect not only the product sitting on it, but also what customers can see beyond it and whether they are encouraged to continue exploring the store.

Furniture also contributes to the wider servicescape, the physical environment through which customers experience a business. Mary Jo Bitner’s foundational Servicescape framework showed that physical surroundings can influence both customer and employee behaviour. In retail design, this means that furniture arrangement, spacing, materials and scale can shape how intuitive, comfortable and visually coherent a store feels.

Materiality strengthens this effect. In her research at De Bijenkorf department stores, Elze Kurt examined how polished surfaces, glass, contrasting textures and display furniture worked together with merchandise and lighting. Her findings reinforced that fixtures are perceived in context. Their finish, proportion and relationship to surrounding products can change both the visual hierarchy of the store and the perceived character of the merchandise.

For this reason, strong retail design considers furniture from the beginning of the architectural process. A display table should be evaluated simultaneously as a product platform, circulation element, visual barrier or opening, tactile object and piece of brand communication. When furniture and architecture are developed together, stores can create clearer movement and stronger product visibility without filling every available square metre with fixtures.

When should a brand involve a retail interior architect?

A brand should involve a retail interior architect as soon as the idea of creating a physical store begins to take shape. Retail architecture should not be introduced only after a location has been chosen or when the brand is ready to select finishes and furniture. The physical store is one of the most direct expressions of a brand, so its architecture, circulation, materials, lighting, furniture and product presentation should develop alongside the concept from the beginning.

This early involvement is particularly important for maintaining consistency between brand identity and physical experience. A strong identity can become diluted when spatial decisions are made independently of the wider brand strategy. A store may use attractive materials and expensive furniture and still communicate the wrong message if its scale, atmosphere, customer journey or visual language contradict what the brand represents. Retail architects translate abstract ideas such as heritage, experimentation, exclusivity, craftsmanship or accessibility into tangible spatial decisions that customers can actually experience.

This is also why established fashion and luxury brands place significant attention on store design, visual merchandising and architectural identity. Physical retail communicates through much more than a logo. The proportions of a room, distance between products, material palette, lighting intensity, display systems and even the way customers approach a fitting room can contribute to how the brand is perceived. When these elements are developed as one system, the store becomes an extension of the brand rather than simply a place where its products happen to be sold.

“The moment a brand decides that it needs a physical store, a retail architect should become part of the conversation. If the architecture is developed separately from the brand identity, the result can communicate something completely different from what the brand actually stands for. A store should translate the values of the brand into space, from the overall customer journey down to the smallest display detail.”
Elze Kurt, Interior Architect and Retail Designer

For this reason, the architect's role ideally begins with concept development and continues through spatial planning, materials, furniture, displays, lighting and technical implementation. Involving a retail architect early gives the brand a better opportunity to create a coherent physical identity rather than trying to repair disconnected decisions later.

Retail design begins with what happens between the objects

A memorable store is rarely defined by one striking material or one sculptural display. What matters just as much is what happens between those elements: the view across the room, the distance before a customer turns, the moment a product becomes visible and the reason someone decides to walk farther inside.

This is where Elze Kurt positions retail architecture.

Her work and research treat the store as an active environment in which architecture, furniture, products and people continuously affect one another. The aim is not to design a customer journey so rigidly that every decision has already been made. It is to create enough spatial clarity, curiosity and hierarchy for customers to make those decisions naturally.

Brands developing a new shop, showroom or commercial interior can explore Elze Kurt’s retail design portfolio and project work to see how this approach translates into physical space.

For a project-specific discussion, contact Elze Kurt about retail and commercial interior design to evaluate the layout, circulation, material strategy and customer experience before the design moves into detailed development.

Metadata

Meta title:
Elze Kurt on Retail Store Layout Design: How Space Influences Customer Decisions

Meta description:
Retail store layout design with Elze Kurt: explore how circulation, visibility and material choices shape customer behaviour and commercial interiors.

Open Graph title:
Elze Kurt on Retail Store Layout Design and Customer Behaviour

Open Graph description:
Explore Elze Kurt’s approach to retail architecture, customer flow, product visibility and the spatial decisions that shape how people experience stores.

Primary keyword:
retail store layout design

Secondary keywords:
retail architecture, retail interior design, customer flow retail, retail layout psychology, retail space planning, consumer behaviour in retail, commercial interior design

Content Cluster Pillar:
Retail Architecture & Commercial Interior Design