RDM Role & Design for Westfield | UK

For six years, Design Clarity served as Retail Design Manager across a portfolio of major Westfield centres, including Merry Hill, Royal Victoria Place, CastleCourt Belfast, Guildford, Derby, Westfield Stratford and Westfield London. Our remit extended far beyond simple compliance checks: it required constant negotiation, coordination and strategic guidance to ensure that every retail intervention—large or small—enhanced the overall quality of the environment.

The role demanded a strong on-site presence through weekly inspections, structured design review meetings and daily dialogue with retailers, leasing teams and shop-delivery coordinators. This direct engagement enabled us to maintain momentum across multiple projects simultaneously while keeping design integrity at the forefront of every decision.

Throughout our appointment, we assessed proposals from hundreds of national and international brands, ensuring their shopfronts, layouts and visual identities aligned with centre guidelines and operational requirements. Our work included the development of detailed design standards—shopfront typologies, inter-tenancy junctions, bespoke mall ceilings, specialist lighting and signage systems—all conceived to deliver coherence, clarity and commercial visibility across diverse retail environments.

We also contributed to the architectural expression of shared mall spaces. Column cladding, void treatments, balustrades, floor patterns, vertical circulation zones, planting and water features all formed part of the sensory toolkit used to elevate the customer journey. Through rationalised material palettes, furniture strategies and carefully calibrated control zones, each centre achieved a distinct personality while retaining a unified Westfield brand character.

Our approach consistently recognised the importance of local communities and how their identity shapes the success of each destination. By balancing global retail expertise with a sensitivity to local context, we helped create environments that feel both internationally polished and regionally grounded.

The value of this partnership is best captured in the words of David Slade, Director of Leasing at Westfield UK:

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the outstanding contribution that you and your team have made as Retail Design Managers for our operational centres in maintaining and improving the overall standard of our existing portfolio. Your contribution to the design of Westfield London and Westfield Derby—and across the Westfield UK portfolio—has been very important.”