Television personality and retail marketing authority, Mary Portas, sought the practice’s expertise to design the interior of Save the Children’s Orpington branch as part of her campaign to raise the profile of several UK charities. The project featured in the forthcoming BBC2 series, ‘Mary Queen of Charity Shops’.

The very limited fit-out budget and tight project timescales, combined with a design concept inspired by market shopping, led Conran and Partners intuitively towards a simple, bold and functional retail scheme based around a selection of robust, economic materials including plywood, painted pegboard and linoleum.

Merchandising elements including plywood trestle tables, baskets and chalkboard signage further evoke a market atmosphere and, combined with found display objects such as timber wine crates and fruit boxes, pick up on the theme of reuse and recycling which runs throughout the design.

A dark grey painted pegboard wall treatment threaded with coloured elastic creates a functional, flexible merchandising system and provides a strong graphic backdrop to reduce visual clutter and highlight individual products.

Volunteers and the local community welcomed the opening of the new store and the visible success of the new design has been measured by record sales figures and donations which have continued in the months since opening.