Entrance Matting At West Quay Shopping Centre, Southampton

INTRAflex Radial Features

West Quay, located in the heart of Southampton city centre, boasts over 90 stores spread over three shopping levels. It has quickly become a household name for an immersive shopping experience.

With an average weekly footfall of 320,000, this high traffic centre certainly needs a safe and durable commercial entrance matting system.

The design of West Quay responds to Southampton’s existing streetscape and features a wide range of materials. These materials carry significance to the location of the centre and its history; from the Portland Stone, buff-coloured brickwork, metal cladding and a masonry base of stone walls used to reflect the different parts of the city including the historic old town, post-war development and modern buildings.

This is complemented by a series of naturally lit internal public spaces, each with its own distinctive character, creating a link to the internal ‘street’ of the centre. The main entrance on Above Bar, identified by a vaulted fabric canopy projecting into the street, marks the start of the route, which leads through a serpentine arcade to emerge into a dramatic focal space.

Externally, the main building features a masonry podium based clad in stone panels with decorative metal grilles. The design has significantly improved the urban environment by transforming a run-down industrial site and creating new linkages to the landscaped through a more pedestrianised High Street. It does this by keeping with the maritime tradition of Southampton and takes inspiration from the existing buildings set back from the medieval town walls.

The centre specified INTRAsystems INTRAlink entrance matting. This hardwearing modular interlocking tile system offers exceptional durability. It is flexible, robust, highly effective and competitively priced – offering all the essential functions at an affordable price point without compromising aesthetics.

For a durable, cost-effective entrance matting specification for your shopping centre or retail park, call our entrance matting experts to arrange a free site visit or view more of our high-performance retail installation on our dedicated shopping centre sector pages.