Bluewater Shopping Centre

Upon its opening, Bluewater was celebrated as Europe’s largest and most innovative retail and leisure destination, and credited with transforming the retail landscape in the UK.

A decade later, in response to the rapidly changing retail environment, the Centre aimed to refresh and reimagine the Bluewater brand and guest experience for its 27 million annual visitors. Applied played a key role in this transformation by conducting a comprehensive review of the wayfinding system. The review phase of the project catalogued over 5,000 signs, analysed three years of pedestrian and traffic count data and undertook a survey of 1,000 guests to provide a qualitative and quantitative baseline for the wayfinding strategy.

After conducting this in-depth research, the Applied team crafted a strategy that built a compelling business case, demonstrating how wayfinding enhancements could deliver measurable performance improvements. These included increasing dwell times and visit frequency, as well as reducing queuing and delays for drivers locating parking spaces. These ‘nudge’ improvements help drive significant financial returns.

Applied delivered a comprehensive design package encompassing the entire wayfinding system. The project also included implementation planning, budgeting, phasing and the creation of tender specifications for digital and analogue wayfinding systems.

Applied collaborated closely with the client and their implementation team throughout the project, ensuring alignment with operational requirements. Following this collaboration, the project was handed over to the client's in-house implementation teams for execution.