Black Friday

Black Friday

By: Andrew Ewing

Every year over Thanksgiving break we get together with family and friends and stuff ourselves with the best cooking of the year, and then lounge around and watch football in the afternoon.  We go to bed early Thursday night to get rested for the biggest retail shopping day of the year.  This is the day where everyone seems to go crazy and will do whatever it takes to get the best deal or get the item they have been waiting to buy on sale all year.  Black Friday is actually pretty important to the world of architecture, and not just because of the deals we can get or the fact that it takes place in buildings designed by architects.  I think it's important because it's the day stores have their highest occupancy load of the year.  We have been talking a lot about occupancy load in class and just how important that is to the building.  Occupancy loads determine or effect many things ranging from number of exits, to plumbing fixture counts, to general function of floor plans.  At some point in our career, most of us will probably design a retail store, and this day will be key to the calculations.  With Black Friday there is always a cause for concern about safety among the customers rushing in to get deals. We must always plan and design for worst case scenarios.  Because of the importance this day has on the stores, it should be a key topic of conversation should an owner ever come to you with the task of designing a retail store.