Triplar has been awarded PAS 82 accreditation in recognition of the team’s on-going commitment to Environmental Health and Safety.

Created specifically for the shop fitting industry, Public Available Specification (PAS) 82 specifies a shop fitting management system and standardised level of corporate governance in a company. Developed by the National Association of Shopfitters (NAS) with the British Standards Institution (BSI) to raise standards within the industry, it promotes quality and best practice procedures and provides recommendations on various business aspects, including:

• Corporate governance
• Health, Safety and Environmental policies
• Training
• Innovation and Value Engineering
• Customer Service

Accreditation ensures that clients have assessed evidence that the company meets the highest standards in the market place. The in-depth process looks at elements such as risk assessments, supply chain management, outsourcing, hazards in the workplace, premises, covering the full range of requirements in order to give clients full confidence in the service they are using.

Also participating in the Considerate Constructor Scheme, Triplar is seeking to offer best-practice across its retail display and shop fitting operations in Europe and beyond. The Considerate Constructors Scheme outlines a number of criteria focused on improving on-site working practices and includes:

• Being Considerate (to all parties affected by your work)
• Focus on the Environment
• Appearance
• Being a Good Neighbour
• Being Respectful
• Focus on Safety
• Being Responsible
• Being Accountable

Triplar continues to develop a close partnership with leading education consultancy firm Bryanston Square in a bid to revolutionise the design of schools and other learning environments.

The London-based consultancy offers a wide range of services for schools, all of which rethink where teaching should take place. The firm’s aim is to redesign study spaces across the country to make them more engaging for young people.

MD Tim Rodwell has been speaking at a series of Bryanston Square seminars over the last couple of months, bringing designers, construction experts, Local Authority procurement staff and schools together to discuss the approach taken in the commercial and retail interiors sector.

Tim said: “Triplar is delighted to be invited to add our expertise to the great work the Bryanston Square team are doing. By offering a best-practice commercial angle on construction in the shop fitting industry, we can show the role of tendering in achieving best value as well as the methods to ensure work is always high standard, on-time and on budget.”

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is transforming the design, construction and management of buildings, and Triplar’s design team is at the cutting edge of developments in retail.

The processes employed within BIM add time and cost as additional dimensions to 3D models, giving a holistic perspective of projects. Additional information is added to models as they pass between various stages – from design to construction and maintenance – building a detailed picture of a facility throughout its lifespan.

Project design co-ordinator Matthew White said: “It is not uncommon for us to revisit stores as part of shop fitting projects, or to undertaken maintenance of stores. Utilising BIM from the earliest stages when we are undertaking a turnkey project has obvious advantages for the client, in terms of the accessibility and storage of information, and can also aid us when revisiting stores or other fit-out projects.

“That is why we are looking to use advanced modelling in every applicable situation. Adoption of BIM has grown significantly in the UK and we recognise it as an important tool for design, construction and future maintenance.”

Shoon have completed the first of several new stores as the brand looks to expand its retail footprint in 2013.

After a difficult start to 2012 the popular footwear chain has gained external investment and is targeting rapid expansion. Currently operating in 11 towns and cities in England, a new style store was completed by Triplar in Cheltenham last month.

Triplar has enjoyed a long-lasting relationship with Shoon, but this was to be the first new store opening in nearly four years.

It all began shortly before Christmas with a store survey and initial liaison with the designer at the Regent Parade unit. The 12 day fit-out began with the removal of existing flooring and lighting.

It continued with the creation of a new wall to form a ground floor stockroom, installation of lighting rafts and new track lighting, the addition of new wooden vinyl flooring, shop front decoration and the fitting of new signage panels. New wall display panels with glass shelves were also fitted, and new furniture – which was all produced in Triplar’s Wellingborough factory – was installed to complete the store’s new look.

This year promises to be an exciting one for Shoon, with the brand looking to acquire 38 of the Jane Shilton concession outlets, as well as the license for the Jane Shilton brand.  Discussions are also underway regarding their next store fit-out in Tunbridge Wells, which is expected to be unveiled by mid-June.

If you have ever stepped foot in one of Lush’s distinctive high-street stores you will know that the retailer places great stock in creating a unique shopping experience for customers.

Triplar was recently asked to help bring that experience to life with the fit-out of seven stores in the UK and Ireland.

The project involved completing the shop interiors, including shell, ceiling, floors and back-of-house storage racking and fittings. The team then installed all furniture, metalwork and display items.

The stores are situated in Grafton and Henry Streets, Dublin, Ireland; Newry, Northern Ireland; Exeter; Stratford-Upon-Avon and the Bluewater and Meadowhall shopping centres. Triplar also installed new flooring in the Metrocentre and High Wycombe stores.

Triplar project manager Darryl Sweeney said: “Lush is a very interesting client to work with because of the exacting specifications they have for each and every store. We have to work closely with the design consultants and Lush to make sure we meet their requirements exactly.

“They need to know every aspect of the store’s built environment tallies up with the ethical criteria and standards that are so important to the company and its products.”

Triplar managed to turnaround some of the stores much quicker than required. And despite being delayed by the discovery and removal of asbestos, Triplar completed the Exeter store in just eight days.

Last year Triplar fitted out Lush’s flagship ‘Lush Spa’ in King’s Road, Chelsea. The individually designed store included treatment rooms, showers and a customer lounge.

Darryl added: “Our work with Lush over the past year illustrates Triplar’s versatility. We can move seamlessly from one-off ‘concepts’ to the roll-out of identical stores throughout the UK and Europe.”

Triplar has completed work on a new Leeds store for Dr Martens, a year on from building the brand’s acclaimed pop-up shop in Spitalfields, London.

It opened last month and is the first UK outlet the footwear company has launched outside of London.

The store has been furnished using items recycled from Dr Martens factories. Triplar installed a variety of refurbished racking, tables and chairs and also used reclaimed materials as the basis for new furniture – building a sales counter from assorted picture frames and a reclaimed Dr Martens factory counter top.

Work also included fitting luggage racks from old railway carriages to act as shelving and changes to the store’s lighting. Behind the scenes the team re-fitted the manager’s office and staff room.

Darryl Sweeney led the Leeds project, he said: “Dr Martens is a British institution and it’s great to have been involved in the creation of their first store outside of the capital.

“The use of recycled materials gives the store a distinctive feel and offered us the opportunity to work with furniture and fittings that had a real sense of history.

“We’re particularly proud of the way the sales counter looks. Modelled on a similar unit in San Francisco, we scaled down the design and constructed it in our workshop.”

Last year Triplar also built an industrial-style pop-up shop for Dr Martens in Spitalfields, London. Upon opening the concept store received praise from a number of retail commentators and remains a permanent fixture in the capital.

Triplar has bolstered its project management team following a new appointment.

Steven McCarthy joins the team under Danny Dorgan and has 15 years experience in the retail interiors industry, most recently as a project manager for two leading fit-out companies.

He has worked on a number of high-value projects, including the refurbishment of the Transport for London, BT and Red Bull Racing’s headquarters, as well as the recently opened £545million Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

Steven’s first project will see him manage the fit-out of a number of new Nike factory outlets.

Triplar’s factory team has completed work on a range of point of sale units for luxury brand Gucci.

The units were commissioned by retail design consultancy Sheridan & Co and will feature in Gucci in-store cosmetics concessions throughout the UK during the festive season.

Encompassing counters, shelving units and graphics features, the factory constructed the units from laminated MDF before laminating them again to mask any joints. They were then finished at Sheridan & Co using high quality spray painting and printing techniques.

Danny Dorgan, manager in charge of the project, said: “These units had to have a high quality finish that is in-keeping with Gucci’s luxury brand image. Our factory was able to produce all of them to a high standard, on-time and on-budget.”

Triplar recently completed work on a new store for Nokia in the The Glades Shopping Centre, Bromley.

A complete shopfit of the store took six-weeks to complete, during which period Triplar installed all new mechanical systems, new electrics, new flooring, new ceilings and a new shop front. The team also oversaw the installation of all furniture in the store and fitted a feature back wall.

Danny Dorgan said: “This was a thorough fit-out job, from new air conditioning and sprinkler systems, to new flooring and ceilings; we had to start the store from scratch.

“Nothing is more satisfying than starting with an empty unit and arriving at a fantastic looking store that the client is delighted with.”

Triplar, the Northampton-based shopfitting, retail display and commercial interiors specialist, has delivered re-fits of five stores across Europe for global sportswear giant Nike.

The company, which also originally fitted out the stores, revisited sites in Parndorf, Austria; Roermond, The Netherlands; Troyes, France; Rome, Italy; and Madrid, Spain for the project.

The store concept and interior designs were completed in-house by Nike, while Triplar advised on floor plans for the outlets and manufactured fittings, metalwork, furniture and graphics, as well as completing installation at the outlets. In total each shop involved 20 tonnes of metalwork, which was delivered on site by up to five articulated trucks.

Despite the scale of the project in-store installation was completed in just 10 days at each outlet, ensuring they were only closed for one trading weekend.

Tim Rodwell, a director of Triplar, which also works with brands and retailers including Levi Strauss & Co, Blacks and Lush, said: “It’s not often that you actually re-fit stores you previously fitted out and in many ways that is what has made this project so important for us.

“The challenge is to not only meet, but also surpass the standard we previously delivered at these stores.”

He added that working in different countries while still delivering consistently presented Triplar with several challenges.

“Getting flooring and other materials to site has been the biggest challenges. Flooring works can be made more difficult by different climates, and sourcing the correct specification flooring is always a challenge,” Tim said.

“When working across several different countries the logistics of getting people and materials to site can also be logistically complicated. Then, when you are working in-store, you have to take note of local health and safety rules and fire policies, as well as restrictions placed by landlords.”

All five stores opened on schedule, and in some cases Triplar was able to hand the store back earlier to Nike, providing more time for merchandising ahead of re-opening.