EDL Showcase Gallery
The EDL Gallery helps EDL, a Singapore-owned business, to improve their customer experience and sales process through innovatively designed educational touchpoints. Despite its remote location, the gallery unlocks infinite possibilities and inspires local and regional designers and design enthusiasts to reframe the role of materials and their applications, and witness how offcuts are transformed into more purposeful outcomes. It allows them to connect with the space and provides meaning beyond product selection, bringing a sense of wonder to the journey.
The EDL Showcase Gallery is a catalyst for infinite design possibilities, and inspires visitors with an out-of-this-world experience. Despite being in a remote location within an industrial estate, the EDL Gallery is a destination-driven space that changes the perception of what a material gallery can be.
Photo Credits: EDL Pte Ltd
Client
EDL Pte Ltd
Location
Singapore
Sector
Retail / Manufacturing
Scope
Design, Advisory, Build
Size
7,500 sqft
Design & Build Highlights
Given that the new EDL gallery is about 3.5 times bigger than their previous one, the new Library space would be enlarged substantially to accommodate 4 large high tables of slightly varying heights, that feature 6 touch screens to allow for ease of access to their digital portals to best aid their selection process.
The expanded library’s high discussion tables are detailed such that they can be taken apart to be stored in smaller components at a hidden store within the space should EDL choose to turn the library into a seminar setting with the 4 tables’ hidden power source and base support left behind as side tables / stools to complement the seminar room seats setting.
The collection of large format sample pullouts is very extensive at a number close to 1000 pieces. In the previous gallery it was difficult to have every piece of large-sample pull-out to be shadow free and we provided handheld lanterns to mitigate the uneven lighting issues faced.
In the new gallery, life size mock ups were done at early stages of the project to test various cost efficient lighting strategies to create shadow-free viewing of large format sample pull-outs. As different customers would have varying preference for lighting temperatures, we created a new feature - a suspended “light-lab” to best support the need to see materials in different light temperature conditions. There are 4 of these “light labs” in the canopy zone with labels that B2B or B2C customers can easily comprehend.
Challenges & Objectives
The new EDL gallery project came about when the government needed to redevelop the entire precinct they were in and our design principal, Gwen Tan, was tasked to be the architect for the new building that their headquarters was to be relocated to.
The new site is equally remote, sited in an industrial area near the northern border of Singapore. Given that the first gallery provided valuable data upon which the brief of the second gallery was formulated, we were able to create better user experiences, journey maps, and interfaces.
Outcome / Results
Many designers conduct multiple client meetings in the space - using the gallery almost like a co-working space. There is consistently an upward trend of B2B customers approaching them to host private tours and Institutes of Higher Learning have also onboarded EDL as industry partners to provide periodic educational tours for their students. Requests for guided visits from overseas sources have also increased, ranging from design associations to individuals.
There has been a 500% increase in visitors to the gallery on weekdays and a 100% increase on weekends, compared to their previous gallery. They have also seen an increase in sales across their brands, and they also expect an increase in profits due to increased demand from overseas orders.