Chrono-Spatialism. Introducing a Time-Based Approach for Retail Space Design in the Digitalized Scenario

Abstract

In the future the important criterion to evaluate market participants, will be the proportion of its products and services in 24 h a day of consumers [1]. Thanks to the media and digital revolution, time became portable and elastic, a temporal form Agger (2011) designated as iTime. And in a culture dominated by the use of smartphones, iTime dissolved the boundaries between day and night, work and leisure, and space and time [2]. As retail activities become more accessible at any time and from any location, and as omni-channel retailing disrupts retail stores’ monopoly on shopping activities, brick and mortar retailers face the threat of online shopping and must transform in this context. Within the theory of urbanism, the concept of chrono-urbanism is proposed as a key step to question in depth our lifestyles, production and consumption, to be aware of the existing dissociation between space and time. From the perspective of sociology and design disciplines, a time-based design approach proposes a response to this phenomenon, where interior design could no longer be the same as before, because the fluidity of time would have reshaped the space. By extension, it might also be thought of as chrono-spatialism when considering the design of time in interior spaces. This paper explores the temporality, proximity and engagement of human-centered approaches to retail store design in the digitized scenario through the lens of urbanism, marketing, interior and service design. This study utilizes literature and case studies in order to understand the impact of time, consumer shopping behavior and experience on the changing of retail spaces.