Temporary Supermarket

Client: Asda

Background: Formed by a group of Yorkshire farmers, Asda is now part of the global retail giant Wal-Mart and has 265 stores and 19 depots across the UK. 

Requirement: As part of a major restructuring programme Asda took the radical decision to temporarily close twelve of its stores at a time, whilst they were being rebuilt with mezzanine floors. The challenge for Asda was how to maintain their existing service without inconveniencing their customers. To replace each supermarket would require a large insulated temporary facility, fitted out with services such as air conditioning, power etc, to provide customers with the comfort, safety and service expected from the retail group.

Solution: Our solution was to use a configuration that utilised five interlinked temporary buildings each 15m x 55m, plus a 5m x 55m unit creating an overall footprint of 80m x 55m or 4,400 sq m of retail space at each site.  The tight rolling programme involved installation of twelve of these temporary supermarkets every three weeks at Sheffield, Tamworth, Great Bridge, Trafford Park, Hull, Cardiff, Aintree, St Helens, Kendal, Colchester, Merthyr Tydfil, Govan.

Benefit: The efficient and effective response from Spaciotempo has helped Asda’s complex and ambitious restructuring programme run to schedule, without inconveniencing customers in anyway whatsoever. Feedback from the initial trials at Sheffield was in the first week the temporary supermarket saw an actual increase in weekly turnover!