As you fight your way through the Christmas shopping crowds in the malls this week, take a moment to think how designers are making your task easier.

Retailers rely on interior designers to make their storefronts immediately recognizable, but not so familiar that shoppers take them for granted. Quite a challenge.

Parchoma & Jones Design Inc. recently won the Maple Leaf Award from the International Council of Shopping Centres for the best store over 10,000 sq. ft. for Coast Mountain Sports in Markham, Ont. The firm specializes in retail premises, and other clients include Calgary’s Catch Restaurant and Sport Chek.

“We try to be leading edge in terms of design,” says interior designer Harvey Parchoma.

Catch restaurant in Calgary is an example of the award-winning work of Parchoma & Jones Design Inc.

Brenda Jones, a principal in the firm, says the design has to express the client’s individuality. “There would be no point in designing a Loonie store to look like Holt’s,” says Jones.

Most people have five- or 10-year leases, so designers can’t go too far out on the edge – if they do, the concept might look dated in two years.

Parchoma & Jones is currently working on Sport Chek at Sunridge as part of a progressive transition across Canada. The chain is well branded, with the consumer recognition that comes with it, so consistency is important, says Jones.

Parchoma says the firm offers a range of services, including a design standards review for shopping centres, to ensure that all stores meet the landlord’s criteria.

The Martens Group was recognized in the Best of Canada Interior

They’re also working on prototype stores designed from the inside out, so the facade matches the interior and adds to the shopping experience.

Retail design isn’t limited to shopping centres. Hospitals, universities and airports all have retail niches in a non-retail environment, he says.

Another Calgary design firm was honoured recently for an office interior project. The Martens Group won a project award in the fifth Best of Canada Interior Design Awards for the Conoco Canada offices on two floors of the TransCanada PipeLines building.

Principal Sharon Martens says the firm works mainly in the downtown office market. Once again, the designers are expressing the clients’ corporate cultures.

Conoco evolved from using private offices to open-area designs. For that to work, staff have to buy in to collaborative teamwork as the way to achieve goals and productivity, she says.

The open office arrived in the 1960s and was followed by the cubicle farm, which has lasted into the 21st century. Collaborative teams now work in clusters based on what they do, rather than a grid system, says Martens.

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The feverish resale housing market cooled slightly in both Calgary and Edmonton last month, according to real estate boards in the two major cities.

A seasonal slowdown has stabilized the capital city’s market, the Edmonton Real Estate Board said.

Home sales through the board’s Multiple Listing Service were 1,012, down by 143 from a year earlier. The housing inventory was 2,922, up 647 from 2001.

Tight inventory all year pushed single-family prices upwards to $176,564 in June, a record high. The November average was $174,649, and the median was $166,000.

Meanwhile, Calgarians bought 1,676 homes in November, down from 1,930 in October and 1,926 in November 2001. Those sales included 1,248 single-family houses, 417 condominiums and 11 mobile homes. The 23,745 homes sold to the end of November already passed last year’s annual total of 22,512.

The Calgary Real Estate Board says the average residential price in November was $202,901, up slightly from $201,316 in October, and almost 11 per cent more than last November’s $182,801. Year-to-date, the average residential sale price is $197,381; up from last year’s $182,084.

The median price in Calgary last month was $185,000, the same as in October 2002 and up from $170,000 in November 2001.