Took Advise on Merchant's ROUND ROOM STORE DESIGN

[Toysoldier Thor]

So in the old Merchant roundtable - one of the last threads left there was a discussion on the value of using ROUND room store design as a potentiall effective design for stores.

Well, I must say that last Saturday I got off my butt and designed/built a new ART GALLERY - a store to dsiplay and hopefully sell my large and growing inventory of SL/RL photo art.  I floated to 1000M over my main store and floated there with little idea on how my new Art Gallery was going to look like.  I did think of a round room idea already but after the conversation in the merchant roundtable talk - I was more convinced to try a round room design.

But I also had a huge inventory of art - over 50+ peices of which I wanted to show at least 1/2 of them - BUT i didnt want to cram them into one room.  I also have restrictions on footprint and prim count.

So... after almost 15 hours of marathon building... I came up with a design that I am damn proud of.  Its low prim count & intimate round room design and most importantly - not crowded for my art to be shown.

I designed a 60m tall - 7 floor Art Gallery.  Each floor uses a 20m diameter floor footprint with a 2 ramp-flights to the next floor.  It also has an amazing top open air patio with a domed moving stardome.  the raw primcount for the entire build (without interior decorating) is under 40 prims!!  I can also add more floors in about 15 seconds.

I can comfortably show 26 peices of art that are all in large frame dimension and with lots of space between pieces.

I would love to tell you all to come peek at it but I have not decided on a grand opening art show date yet - so sadly I cant give a link to it just yet.

BUT... I love the round store/gallery design - great idea fellow merchants.

[Porky Gorky]

That sounds really cool!

I was commissioned to build a gallery for a German photographer in 2007 and after much discussion we decided on a round build. The build had a diameter of 128 metres and only 1 storey high. Inside there were 4 more round walls, almost like a doughnut within a doughnut within a doughnut each getting smaller as you got to the centre. So the end result was seemingly endless curved corridors with photographs spaced every 10 metres. In the centre there was a nice round 30m diameter room where we set up an indoor garden with an original Starax piece in the centre. It really did work well. 

I started on a similar design for IBM a year later but they cancelled the project so I never got to improve upon it.

Drop me a LM or put an announcement in this thread when you are open, I would like to visit!

[Kerhop Seattle]

I like the idea of a round room store design, but am curious about having several floors for visitors to explore. Historically when I've observed avatar traffic (using gadgets that I also sell, shameless plug) I've found that a very limited number will go up/down ramps or teleport to other floors. Perhaps it's a signage issue where they need incentive to check out the other areas.

[Toysoldier Thor]

I will tell you after my big Art show event on Sunday evening.  All my guests will TP onto the 1st floor of a 7 floor Art Gallery.  I will see how many of my arriving guests will end up at the top patio level. 

Maybe because its an art gallery and each of my round rooms is small enough (only 300sq. meters) that the ramp will be their natural progression for guests to follow.  Plus I have an artwork at the top of the 2-flight ramp that will entice the guests to continue up.

But maybe whats good for an Art Gallery design is not good for a general Store design.

IM me if u wanna see the gallery design.  Coming during the art show on sunday might not be a good idea as it is looking like its going to be very crowded unless u want to watch how the guests travel.