# Sales Experience Centre Design for a Residential Developer

> Our design for a residential developer's sales experience centre: a cafe-style waiting lounge, four meeting spaces from a three-seat nook to a twelve-seat conference room, a sales head's cabin and nine sales desks — every room sized on plan and given its own lighting design, because this is a building whose only job is to close a sale.

## The brief

A sales experience centre for a residential developer — the building where buyers are
received, shown the project, taken through a floor plan and, if it goes well, closed.

That makes it an unusual brief. An office is designed for the people who work in it every
day; an experience centre is designed for a stranger's first twenty minutes. The staff
accommodation is real and has to work, but it is fitted around the visitor's route rather
than the other way round.

## Every room sized on plan

The design fixes room sizes and seat counts before any finish is chosen, which is the right
order: a 1000 × 2100 mm table needs a room of a certain size, and finding that out later
is how meeting rooms end up with chairs that cannot be pulled out.

| Room | Size on plan | Seats |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Cafe and lounge | 9200 × 6800 mm | 14 chairs, 5 tables, 2 sofas |
| Reception | 6200 × 4800 mm | 2 |
| Conference room | 4800 × 6800 mm | 11–12 around a 1200 × 3750 mm table |
| Meeting room one | 3300 × 5400 mm | 6 around a 1000 × 2100 mm table |
| Meeting nook | 2100 × 2700 mm | 3 |
| Sales head's cabin | 2500 × 3400 mm | Desk plus 2 visitors |
| Sales workstations | 5200 × 5800 mm | 9 desks, 6 pedestals |
| Private dining | — | 16 seats across 4 tables |
| Security cabin | — | 1 |

Read the meeting mix from the bottom up. **The three-seat nook is the room that will work
hardest**, because most property conversations are one family and one salesperson. Without
it, that couple ends up in the twelve-seat conference room, which changes the tone of a
negotiation more than any finish does.

## The arrival sequence

Three things have to happen in the first minute: the visitor sees the project, someone
greets them, and they are given somewhere to sit that does not feel like a queue.

So the **scale model sits in the arrival sightline but out of the walking route** — visible
on entry, walkable all the way round, without crossing the reception desk. The **cafe does
the waiting**, with proper seating and a coffee counter rather than a row of chairs; a
family with children will wait there without minding, and the salesperson gets a second,
less formal place to talk. Both the model and the cafe get dedicated lighting, for the
reason below.

## A lighting plan per room

This is the part most fit-outs skip, and in a sales building it is the part that decides
whether the finishes read as premium. Each room in the design carries its own plan rather
than a general ceiling grid:

- **A pendant over every table.** Focused light on the surface where the conversation and
  the paperwork happen.
- **Recessed downlights for the ambient level**, so the room is evenly lit when the
  pendants are the only feature.
- **Wall washers on the feature walls.** Textured wallpaper, fluted panelling and stone
  only look like anything when light rakes across them. Lit flatly, an expensive wall
  reads as beige.
- **Warm white at 3000K throughout**, which keeps timber and stone warm. Cooler light
  makes the same materials look grey and the room look like a clinic.
- **Anti-glare fittings at the sales desks**, plus linear pendants over the bay — staff sit
  under these all day, which is a different requirement from a room a visitor uses once.
- **A statement chandelier at reception and in the cafe.** One per space, as the focal
  point; the rest of the lighting in those rooms is deliberately quiet.

Related: [office lighting design](/services/interior-fit-out/office-lighting-design) ·
[lighting power density](/glossary/lighting-power-density)

## Finishes

A sales centre is a showroom for the developer's own standard of finish, so the palette
leans warm and tactile rather than corporate:

| Element | Specified as |
| --- | --- |
| Floor, work areas | Carpet tile in a textured loop pile |
| Floor, front of house | Italian marble, with engineered wood in the cafe |
| Joinery and tables | Wood laminate in a walnut tone, matte black metal bases |
| Feature walls | Textured plain wallpaper, fluted oak panelling, marble-pattern panels |
| Ceilings | Gypsum with paint, dropped and blacked out where the lighting needs to disappear |
| Window treatment | Fabric blinds on every glazed elevation |
| Hardware | Satin stainless door furniture, heavy-duty floor springs on the glass doors |

Two choices are worth calling out. **The walnut laminate is used on every table, desk and
counter** — one tone across the building, so the joinery reads as a set rather than a
collection. And the **ceilings are painted out in black where the track and pendant
lighting sits**, which makes the fittings read as intentional instead of as clutter.

Related: [carpet tile](/materials/carpet-tile) ·
[laminate and veneer](/materials/laminate-and-veneer) ·
[high pressure laminate](/materials/high-pressure-laminate-hpl) ·
[false ceilings and partitions](/services/interior-fit-out/false-ceilings-and-partitions)

## Outside the door

The design carries the arrival sequence out to the site, because a visitor forms an opinion
before they reach reception. The facade uses **ACP in a cocoa teak wood finish** with
travertine and textured paint, mosaic tile at the entrance, and paved driveway and parking
blocks. The planting is chosen for structure and low maintenance in full sun —
bougainvillea for colour, foxtail and travellers palms for height, cycas and bismarck palm
for form.

Related: [aluminium composite panel](/materials/aluminium-composite-panel) ·
[cladding systems](/services/facade-glazing/cladding-systems)

## What to settle before construction drawings

- **Peak visitor load on a launch weekend**, not an average day. It sizes the cafe, the
  parking and the number of small rooms.
- **Whether the model is final.** Its footprint sets the arrival layout, and models are
  often built after the interior is drawn.
- **How long the centre will stand.** A sales centre with a three-year life takes different
  partitioning and services decisions from a permanent building.
- **Where staff park and enter.** If sales staff arrive through the visitor entrance, the
  arrival sequence is compromised every morning.
- **Signage and branding zones**, so wall finishes and lighting are coordinated with them
  rather than cut into later.

Related: [Cat A vs Cat B fit-out](/glossary/cat-a-vs-cat-b-fit-out) ·
[demountable partitions](/glossary/demountable-partitions)

## Taking it to site

We design and build these end to end — interiors, services, facade and landscape under one
contract:
[office design and build](/services/office-design-build) ·
[turnkey office fit-out](/services/interior-fit-out/turnkey-office-fit-out) ·
[fit-out MEP coordination](/services/interior-fit-out/fit-out-mep-coordination) ·
[residential developments](/industries/residential-developments) ·
[facade and glazing](/services/facade-glazing)

**Planning a sales centre or an experience centre?** Send the shell drawings and your sales
team headcount. [Talk to the design team](/contact).

## Frequently asked questions

### What is a sales experience centre and how is it different from an office?

It is the building where a developer sells homes: walk-ins arrive without appointments, sit somewhere comfortable, look at a model of the project, negotiate in private and sign. An office is designed for the people who work there every day. An experience centre is designed for a stranger's first twenty minutes, and the staff space is fitted around that.

### How many meeting rooms does a sales centre need?

Fewer large ones and more small ones than people expect. This design has four: a twelve-seat conference room, a six-seat room, a three-seat nook and a private dining room. Most property conversations are one family and one salesperson, so the three-seat room gets used hardest — and without it, a couple ends up negotiating in a twelve-seat boardroom, which changes the tone of the conversation.

### Why does lighting matter so much in a sales gallery?

Because the finishes are the product. This design gives every room its own lighting plan: a pendant over each table for focus, recessed downlights for ambient level, wall washers to lift the wall textures, and warm white at 3000K throughout so materials read warm rather than clinical. At the sales desks the fittings are anti-glare, since staff sit under them all day.

### Where should the scale model go?

In the arrival sightline, but not in the walking route. A visitor should see the project the moment they enter and be able to circle the model without crossing the reception desk or the cafe seating. It is also the one object in the building that needs dedicated lighting from above rather than ambient light.

### Does the cafe earn its space in a sales centre?

Yes, more than a formal waiting area does. Visitors arrive as families, often with children, and wait while a salesperson finishes with someone else. Cafe seating makes that wait tolerable and gives the salesperson a second, less formal place to talk. It is also the part of the building people photograph.

### Can you design and build our sales experience centre?

Yes. Send the shell drawings and the sales team headcount, and we will plan the arrival sequence, the meeting mix and the staff floor the same way, then build it — interiors, services and facade under one contract.

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Source: https://hagerstone.com/our-designs/sales-experience-centre-design-residential-developer