Retail Design for Mercedes Benz, Bangkok, Budapest, Heilbronn

This unique project challenge required a modular catalog for redevelopments, new buildings, and new formats for over 6,000 Mercedes-Benz commercial retail facilities worldwide. The intended goal was a spatial brand narrative to ensure a globally recognizable brand identity of Mercedes-Benz. It had to be easily appliable to a range of existing facilities and premises, different building cultures and traditions as well as to different environments – city/country, old building/new building, large dealerships/small outlets. The consistent logic of a clear customer journey with reoccurring touchpoints is integrated into a spatial flow of product interaction and consultation. At the same time, the incorporation of a modular, extendable media concept allows the seamless integration of virtual content into the physical reality of a brand environment.

The Mercedes-Benz brand is synonymous worldwide with “Made in Germany.” GRAFT’s architectural concept for the Mercedes-Benz global brand environments is based on a clear, confident, and technically valuable language. The user-centric customer journey, spatial flow, dynamic formal language, brand-related material, and color palette, along with the intelligent integration of digital media lead to an atmospherically expressive quality for a new human-centered design similar to the precision and success of the Mercedes Benz’s state-of-the-art manufacturing.

Due to the nature of such a large and complex project for one of the global leaders in the automotive industry, this project needed to be handled discreetly throughout its development. From the international competition in 2014 to the realization of the first prototypes in 2017/18, the project had to be managed in a highly confidential manner. Developing an adaptable architectural concept for the more than 6,000 Mercedes Benz shops worldwide required not only devising a highly intelligent modular system of architectural elements but also a well-structured communication strategy and educational concept. As such, we communicate core brand ideas, planning, and execution processes as well as potential media integration in a simple, joyful, and easy way, and continue to consult and sign-off for Mercedes-Benz’s planning partners and their dealers worldwide.