The store debuted a new J Sainsbury format, suited to smaller town centre sites, providing approximately 17,500 sq ft of sales area, and a further 9,600 sq ft of back-up and staff areas. The architecture responds to Sainsbury’s objectives to ensure their stores are a high quality design which will make a significant environmental and visual improvement to the site and surrounding area. The store has been designed in order that, despite its size, it will form an unobtrusive addition to local townscape while providing an easily identifiable store front accessible to pedestrians and car users alike. A simple rectangular form with a shallow pitched roof, the building is composed of three key elements: red brick enclosure, zinc clad first floor which partly sits within the main brick enclosure and a feature shopfront with canopy.
The storefront consists of a tall timber colonnade creating a prominent portico and entrance canopy shading the full height storefront. The colonnade’s zinc clad roof has two rows of glazed rooflights, one of which extends into the store providing natural light to the sales floor, entrance and check outs. The store is located in the centre of the site to satisfy the requirements for generous parking, which serves to naturally screen the service yard where the majority of the plant is located.
Based on the proposals for Deal, the practice was commissioned to develop a national strategy for the imaginative use of Sainsbury’s car parks. Our proposals included a significant reduction in space given over to parking by use of discounts and Nectar card benefits, the reuse of parking space at low peak times for food and farmers’ markets and other temporary uses including mobile libraries and blood banks.
