Glasgow-based music retailer Fopp has opened its largest store to date, in Manchester.
The 8,000 sq ft (745 sq m) store, which cost£1 million, is the company's 15th outlet and trades over two floors. It is also the second Fopp store to include a bar.
Chris Stewart Architects are responsible for the store design, featuring a frontage similar to a mini cinema with a neon-lit overhead canopy.
As shoppers pass through the door, a glass floorplate provides views of the basement.
Project architect Andrew Cardwell said: 'When Fopp took the unit over in November it was a restaurant-bar for Cosmopolitan magazine and had a sort of nail bar in the basement. It is a strange unit in that it has a very small ground floor and a very large basement, so it was important to improve access and to give shoppers a view. That's why the glass is there.'
Cardwell said there is a 'large timber element' to the store, using a hardwood from Junckers called Sylvaket. The material is deployed 'down the side of the stairs and into the bar, where it is used for a lot of the furniture', according to Cardwell.
The store features a high-gloss floor and sprayed enamel plays a major part in the design. Fopp's signature yellow is used in a canopy above the ground-floor cash desk and extends downstairs to the bar.
Walls are painted white and there are a number of feature panels, including one fashioned from black laminate with recesses containing Live Edge cubes from Perspex. These 'take in ambient light and glow'.
Store fit-out was by Bentleys and store equipment was provided by Red Displays.
In another first for the retailer, a standalone Fopp bookstore opened this month in Cardiff.
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