DESIGN | Showroom style


Showroom of the month


Halcyon Interiors, London


Halcyon Interiors has collaborated with CRL Stone to create a new surface studio in its showroom on Wigmore Street


alcyon Interiors has recog- nised how surfaces have become more important for its customers over the past six years. Small samples weren’t giving them the full scope of the surface design. The solution was to redesign its showroom in collaboration with CRL Stone, creating large,


H wall-height


displays that would give customers a detailed look at the surfaces. Graham Robinson, Halcyon Interiors’


Wigmore Street showroom manager, says: “Over the past five or six years, more and more clients were talking about their worktops. We have nine whole kitchen displays, but there are so many more worktop options. You can show people small samples, but that is not enough to help them make a decision.” Robinson says that he spends more time talking about worktops than cupboards and small samples are not enough to give a customer the full scope of a surface – especially if it has a pattern or a long marble vein. The walls were initially blank, but now it looks like a modern art exhibition with the range of large surfaces mounted on the wall. The slabs are patterned colourways that have movement and texture. “The showroom has a calm feeling about it and everything blends. There are no jarring colours. There is nothing that dominates the space. It is more like a neutral rainbow,” says Robinson. The showroom will be a CRL hub for the south. The company already has a showroom in Manchester to cover the north. David Beckett, a CRL Stone director, says: “I don’t think that it is something that we would want to roll out across the whole country. Because, between the two locations, we appear to be handling all the enquiries – it may be that some point in time we do things in the Midlands. This is the location to be, because if someone wants to purchase a kitchen, this street is the place everyone heads to.” Customers have already travelled to see these new displays as it has become such an important – and expensive – part of a


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kitchen design. “People are willing to travel to look at the stone,” says Robinson. “The client is spending a lot on the kitchen and stone in particular. The stone has grown in importance in the past few years. They are spending £20,000 on it. It is probably more important than the units.”


Having the large surface displays next to kitchens means that the customer can understand the surface more. It gives context for them to visualise the surface within a design. As well as the new stone walls, some of the kitchen displays feature new CRL stone worktops. Beckett explains: “Having a showroom that shows slabs of stone isn’t that interest- ing. It needs to be in a kitchen environment as well. The customer may not necessarily be purchasing a kitchen from Halcyon, but they want to finalise the surface.


The showroom has a calm feeling about it. There are no jarring colours. There is nothing that


dominates the space


“In this setting, they can imagine that surface in their kitchen instead of a showroom that uses stone.”


CRL and Halcyon worked together to create the perfect display that would


hold the slabs CRL wanted, but still fit in with the overall tone of the showroom. “At the beginning, we deferred to Graham, as we are not designers. We had some technicians mock up some images of what we could achieve and, after two or three attempts, it turned into the display that is now installed,” says Beckett.


The wall display has been designed so each slab can be swapped out quickly, so when new products are introduced, the display can be changed. For example, veined marble is a real trend at the moment, but darker, moodier tones are slowly becoming more popular. The display can be changed around without any fuss. The surface studio is open to all CRL stone customers – whether they are purchasing a kitchen from Halcyon Interiors or not. Robinson says: “People are being sent by CRL just to look at surfaces and they are loving it. But also, our customers are finding it useful too. The team feel that it is saving them time, as they don’t have to show a picture of a worktop or put six smaller samples together to get a feel for it – they can just easily see it.


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6. · December 2020


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