PCC Community Markets (various locations)

PCC Community Markets began as a food-buying club for 15 Seattle families in 1953 and grew into the nation’s largest consumer-owned food market in the United States, with 11 locations through the Seattle metropolitan region. PCC engaged Graham Baba Architects in 2015 during the early planning for a major store expansion and a simultaneous organization-wide review of the coop’s brand. Graham Baba was tasked with developing a new look and feel for PCC’s most visible brand asset – its stores. Working with a broad cross-section of the coop’s leadership, GBA led several brand exploration exercises to elicit key PCC traits and to determine appropriate matching programmatic uses and aesthetic expressions. This early design work was non-location specific to facilitate its application across a broad range of future remodels and new stores. This strategy also allowed the team to create general brand design principles to ensure that individual store design efforts could always be back-checked against branding goals. Parallel to the GBA’s work, a branding consultant was leading PCC through similar exercises aimed at the brand’s overall expression and its differentiation from competitors in the local grocery space. As Graham Baba began developing conceptual designs for the new look and feel of the PCC store, they coordinated with the consultant’s work to create stores which would match the coop’s future vision for the overall brand and which were appropriately unique to PCC. Using a future new West Seattle neighborhood location as a design lab, the GBA-led team developed key aspects of the store expression, including materials, lighting, fixture design and department identify, and sustainability goals and proposed metrics. Key design moves included: · Use of materials with limited processing. Clear-coated steel, un-stained white oak, mill-finish stainless steel, composite stone slabs, subtle and off-white paint colors, exposed edge plywood and ground concrete form the basis of the material palette. These simpler materials are meant to highlight the products in the store and to support sourcing of construction products from more sustainable sources. · Highlighting areas of customer/employee interaction. Lower service counters and refrigerated cases help customers engaged with knowledgeable and passionate PCC team members to create a more memorable shopping experience. Canopies, interior storefronts and subtle material changes guide customers to these service areas and create a sense of place for each of the various parts of the store. · Commitment to sustainability metrics for new stores. An approach based upon the Living Building Challenge’s petal certification program, highlighting material sourcing and use, was used to develop the design and material palette. This approach also allows for adaptation to the USGBC’s LEED program if desired for specific store locations.