JKA’s new shopfront design guide for Merton Council is now out for consultation, ready for formal adoption as supplementary planning guidance in 2017. The guide is designed with a totally fresh approach, recognizing that many high street businesses find it challenging to employ an architect or designer for shopfront improvements. Instead, it takes the role of a helpful companion, equipping business owners with the skills to make the right decisions about effective branding, scale, colour palettes, display arrangements, sustainability and lighting.

The guide comes with an interactive pattern book which allows users to auto-generate a set of planning drawings for the most common building typologies across Merton by selecting a range of options from an interactive pdf template. Merton Council values the individual character of each of the boroughs town centres and the guide includes specific character studies and guidance for each area. Guidance for new build retail parades has been included too, responding to Future Merton’s regeneration ambitions for several  of its town centres.

Councillors have praised the inter-activity of the guide and hope that this will help to raise design standards across the borough. They felt it was a very well written, praised the illustration and were impressed by the level of detail.