A perspective from the Overseas Study Tour’s Scholarship Recipient, Hannah Ceccato

After applying for the second time around, I was lucky enough to embark on the LFRA Study Tour 2023 to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, and Dusseldorf.

From day one it was ‘go,go,go’ with just over a week filled with walking tours, group discussions, presentations, site tours and trying to keep my eyes open on the bus so Phil couldn’t snap a photo.

Coming from an engineering background, and working in Project Management for Norman Asset Delivery currently, I underestimated the amount I could learn out of an eight day trip beyond the sightseeing, football and beer drinking and netowrking.

A particular favourite being the Markthal in Rotterdam with its dome like structure, serving as a food market, residential and office use, and major tourist attraction. Being undercover, the market could still operate in poor weather and “feel” outdoors due to the large glass façade. All functions operate in unison, and is example of an entirely new take on a typical market square.

The Wall, located near Utrecht, also boasts functionality as a building and noise barrier all in one; it’s 800 metre length was impressive even when just passing by on the bus.

The 65,000 m2 surface area of the building housed Large Format Retail tenancies which customers can visit after parking on the roof, which holds 1400 spaces. Seeing the Netherland’s different take on architecture was impressive.

The Wall was an example of how design a building to make an impression when travelling on a highway at 100 km/hr – a customer would have the building in view for about 30 seconds.

And of course, as was a favourite for many, Signify’s Lighting Application Centre. The visit involved a journey through how light can impact retail, work and public spaces, and perhaps highlighting a lack of appreciation on how significant light can be in our day to day lives.

Through a tour of the centre, we were shown how simply changing a tone of a light could largely impact how a customer viewed a product, from fresh food to clothing and even a simple bottle of tomato sauce.

We were shown how lighting could impact office spaces and achieve increased productivity and higher staff presence through dimming lights during eating times or brightening the floor as the afternoon progresses.

In the days following we were still speaking of the Signify tour, the ‘skylights’ and how we could implement these ideas in our projects at home.

Although there were disappointing trends around vacancy rates within the centres, each destination offered something new and could be taken away as a lesson learnt.

However, these highlights were only second to the time I was able to spend with Australia’s leaders in the industry, who I now call friends, who proved an abundance of knowledge on the Large Format Retail sector.

From the trip, I took away an insight into European LFR, connections, ideas and advice on career progression within the industry.

I strongly encourage anyone who is thinking about applying for the scholarship to do so, as it is truly a memorable experience and a learning curve for a future career in the industry. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity and support.