Ep. 653 - The Hidden Influence of Retail Spaces on Customer Behavior, with Omar Gandhi
In this episode, my guest is Omar Gandhi, founder of Omar Gandhi Architects (OG) and the architectural genius behind Audi Haus.
Omar’s firm, Omar Gandhi Architects, has built a reputation for creating spaces that do more than just exist—they make people feel something. And as it turns out, when people feel something, they’re more likely to engage, connect, and even buy.
In this episode, we talk about the power of intentional design and how Omar, the brilliant architect behind Audi Haus shares insights on how design isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about business, customer psychology, and ultimately, ROI.
We get into:
How retail spaces (not just products) can shape customer perception and influence buying decisions
The ROI of great design—why creating the right environment can make or break a brand’s impact
The wild ride of Omar’s career—from losing his job to building one of Canada’s most respected architecture firms
Why saying yes to the smallest projects early on led to massive opportunities later
And the secret sauce behind Audi Haus—how a single space can shift someone’s entire experience with a brand
This episode is packed with real-world insights that go way beyond architecture. Whether you’re in retail, marketing, or just someone who loves a great underdog story, there’s something here for you.
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Episode Transcript
MC: 0:00
(Episode Sponsor)This episode is brought to you by FlexDealer.
Hey auto industry. Welcome to this special episode of the Dealer Playbook Podcast. We are here at the Toronto International Auto Show and I am thrilled to be joined by Omar Gandhi. He is the chief architect at Omar Gandhi Architects and happens to have designed what I believe is the most beautiful display here at the auto show for Audi Haus. Omar, thanks so much for joining me on the Dealer Playbook.
Omar: 0:39
Oh, thank you, Michael, I'm really excited to chat with you today. This is definitely a different kind of thing for me. So, yeah, it's pretty exciting.
MC: 0:49
Well, there are so many things that I want to ask you about. Part of them are, I will say, selfish because I could watch architects do their sketches for hours and hours, and I know there's an art form to that in and of itself, and I can just imagine you probably have just drawers filled with architectural sketches.
Omar: 1:05
Yeah, I mean often it's. You know musings on the back of things, or you know collections from my peers and my colleagues. So yeah it's. I think the beauty of it is it starts with very messy things.
Omar: 1:20
I love it no-transcript you know, in the 80s, 90s, ended up going to a brilliant little art school which was part of a larger high school, Mayfield in Caledon, and really started to sort of focus on the visual arts and, you know, started to gain a bit of an interest in architecture. So decided to go down that path. I went to the University of Toronto for a few years and then ended up moving out east to Halifax where I did my graduate studies. You know, and you know, like most people starting their career was just trying to, you know, navigate the process, figure out you know what I wanted to do, but was probably more focused on the day to day. So it wasn't really in the plan to start my own practice.
Omar: 2:32
It sort of happened, accidentally lost my job and was just like, okay, well, let me start with one little project, if I can, and those were, you know, decks and you know little bathroom renovations and you know nothing glamorous. But then, yeah, very quickly it kind of picked up just by trying to, I think, nail every little, even kind of unimportant thing that I was working on. And over that 15 years that followed just tried to surround myself with incredible people, including Jeff Shaw, who started with me just after I started the practice and he's probably the real car lover in the practice and was the one that really worked with me on Audi Haus. So, yeah, I think the magic there is just doing things slowly focusing we're a pretty small practice and just trying to crush everything that comes our way.
MC: 3:27
I mean, there's so much to be said of that to unpack there. We couldn't have planned the segue here more perfectly, saying, you know, some, it starts with a little bit of messiness, or, you know, for those listening where they say, ah it, you know, my career's not moving as fast as I want it to, especially in a day and age where everyone wants everything so quickly. Yeah, the beauty, as I see it, as you've explained it, of no, I'm going to say yes to that odd job. I'm going to say yes to that bathroom reno or that patio reno and seeing it for what it was, like the stepping stones of it, to now, all of a sudden you know, be named in Monocle magazine's most influential Canadians to having a Canadian governor general award in architecture. As you look back, what were some of the key lessons that you learned that brought you along the way that you can look to in hindsight and say, oh yeah, that was a building block for me.
Omar: 4:21
Yeah, I think I realized really early on that you know you're only really judged on the work that you produce, and so you know whether it was a little project, you know, leaving people with a really positive experience and something that tries to impact in a positive way, I think, regardless of how small it is. You know it ended up kind of growing in scale. But you know I always talk a little bit about leaving the opportunity to say no to as many things as possible. So you know we don't do you know kind of B work to support the little fancy things we do. You know we only do a small number of really special projects, this being one of them, and you know I think that you need as much time as possible to kind of immerse yourself to really produce something special.
Omar: 5:13
So, yeah, I think the other thing is you know those kind of accolades that you mentioned. I would say that they, you know fire some, you know neurons or something, for like half a second, and I think part of the trick of it all is to just not ride the highs, because you know you're going to be hit with an equivalent number of lows and those are going to impact you in the exact same way, if you let it. And so we're just kind of obsessed with the process and just want to do incredible work.
MC: 5:46
You've struck a chord in me. This resonates so deeply. I can't remember I was just watching an interview with you. Know this is going to sound crazy, because now I'm letting people know what my YouTube algorithm looks like, but I was. I want to say it was an interview with Donny Osmond, yeah, and somebody asked him a question about you. Know, you've accomplished all these things, like you just said, omar, these accolades you've, you know, had 60 albums and you know all these number ones. And he said something almost similar to what you just said. He said look, the highs are great, but if that's all I have, then my lows would be incredibly low.
Omar: 6:28
Absolutely. And you know, for any creative person, I think you encounter the lows at a much higher frequency and you can't really take it as such Right. I mean, I think part of that comes from you know, it wasn't something that someone told me, it was probably watching people, you know, go through that and just think. You know you just these things are kind of, you know, floating in the wind. You just can't let it impact you. You know we're just, we're constantly God, we're rushing the high of just doing cool things. Like it seems like, you know, not very poetic to say that. Like, you know, the fun is the thrill of a big part of it. But you know, when we I'm sure we'll get to this, but when we came the other day to see the final build, you know it looked exactly like the renderings and was, I think, with people in it. You know, better than we could have imagined. You know, for something like this, it's been great seeing people's reactions to that.
MC: 7:29
I do want to talk to you about this and you know, in contrast to some of the other exhibits that we see, which you know were impressive, and not knowing what to expect, when we approached Audi Haus exhibit, we our jaws actually dropped. We went OK, there's an entrance here and there was that beautiful red I'm going to be awful with the names of the vehicles, but there was a beautiful red vehicle that actually lifts and lowers as you get into it and the lighting and the smoothness and there's no straight lines, and we walked in there and it was like a solemn assembly almost. There was this vibe, this feeling that I can't even articulate words to. I think you did a phenomenal job, and that's with absolutely zero architectural understanding, other than I knew how I felt. Walking into that experience. Yeah, how do you pull that off?
Omar: 8:27
First of all, you know, I think Audi for one sort of disengaged from the car show for a few years and when they decided to come back, you know obviously all the credit to Vito Palladino and Joseph Ottorino Ceo and Director of marketing they wanted to do something special and you know, I think they came with ideas, but they gave us a lot of room to really push this through and it was pretty amazing to see varying types of experiences in the space.
Omar: 8:59
In the first kind of night we went, there were a lot of people interested in design of the space and so there was a lot of discussion about that.
Omar: 9:08
But then we came back, you know, unannounced, during the public opening and you know people weren't talking about architecture but they were obviously impacted in the way that we had hoped because, you know, we shaped the design of this thing, thinking about how people navigate the space from the front door on front street or whatever right, and they're navigating through the maze of everything and a bit of chaos and providing them with a little bit of an escape where you start to experience it, the minute you kind of get to a point on the escalator and see the logos, and it just was meant to slow time down, whether it's acoustically, whether it's visually, it's, you know, visually, we wanted the, I think, environment to really recede into the background, but that you felt this kind of brutalist vibe that really kind of pushes the cars to the forefront.
Omar: 10:06
And, yeah, you saw kids and you saw, you know, people of all ages navigating the space and we're treating it very differently than they were just out in the corridor at the other spaces, you know, unknowingly, and that for us, which we, you know, really kind of watched, was the real kind of mark that this did what we intended.
MC: 10:32
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MC: 11:00
I mean, it's beautiful and for someone like me as a marketer, I appreciate so deeply the stark contrast I'm a big fan of when everyone else is doing this. Maybe it's the inspirational music and they want that, or the vibe, or the theme park feel, or whatever it might be. We walked into a space where the only word I can come up with Omar is everyone became reverent, yeah, and that created a contrast to what is happening just on the other side of those doors. You walked in there. I felt like Christian Bale's Batman Nice. I felt like if I was a bachelor, this is what I want the inside of my house to look like. I felt like I had so much more respect for the vehicles and I think the marrying of that, especially as someone who works in the automotive industry, where we know OEMs like the intent isn't just to make someone feel someone. They want eyeballs on their vehicles, they want people to be aware of the product they push. I think presents itself in the marketplace as well.
Omar: 12:04
Right, you know, a real quiet, coolness, maturity.
Omar: 12:22
You know, without the bells and whistles, it's not a coincidence that we work with them.
Omar: 12:28
I kind of manifest that relationship, maybe 10 years ago, where, you know, I was published in one of their articles and then we had a couple of their cars at one of our projects. For you know, I was published in one of their articles and then we had a couple of their cars at one of our projects, for, you know, one of their campaigns, and so you know, I think part of my own trajectory and the trajectory of my studio was driven by a common aspiration, or at least I found what they did really exciting and inspiring. And you know, talk about origin story. I remember my employer, probably back in 2004, having an A4 all road and I just I remembered looking at that and just thinking like I want that car one day, and you know the kind of the whole package that comes with it. You know what I mean and you know I don't normally dream like that per se, but that was, you know, certainly the start of my love affair with the brand as you're sitting down.
MC: 13:29
I'm so curious about this and you say, ok, we're going to start with the concept. Do you start with a feeling? Do you start with a creative palette, like, what does it really look like to say, okay, I need to marry my design to true ROI for my, in this case, for Audi Haus? How do I, how do I make sure that what I put together actually moves people to, to an action that the customer is wanting them to take First?
Omar: 13:57
of all. It's certainly a lot of back and forth, but fortunately in alignment right away with ourselves and the team over there. But part of that vibe that we designed, that Jeff and I designed, was driven by something we've been excited about for a long time. We've actually designed some private garages for people that really kind of had that kind of bat cave feel right, and you know there's something really sort of masculine and gritty and you know the streets of Berlin kind of vibe to it that is very different than everything else, and so we were fortunate that it sort of fit in that thing that we've always riffed back and forth like school kids just getting excited about things.
Omar: 14:45
But you know I always say that we use light and texture and materials to shape an experience. So you know, whether it's the areas that sort of widen or compress, or there's a lot of texture on the walls with light that emanate through it, all of these things start with very loose, rough sketches that are not meant for public consumption. They're just throwing ideas on paper and this was really the culmination of both Jeff and, I think, dreaming for 15 years about something like this and somehow this opportunity allowed for us to kind of really do that.
MC: 15:27
It's fascinating to me. Like I said, there are so many firsts for me walking into this and knowing that I was going to get to speak with the architect who put it all together. Another first for me is realizing how much the space becomes its own character. Right, it's almost like a play and every character has its. You know, I've heard directors say this before. Like directors will say, we wanted the set to be a character of the movie, but now I experienced it. You know this was the first time I experienced it. This space became a character that shaped a narrative for Audi in what they wanted you to know about them, the position that they take, that they are a different automaker. You talked a lot about the back and forth, but from your angle, as the architect, the one who really brought it all together, what's your take? What's your position on how the space compels people to move to a purchase, potentially of a vehicle?
Omar: 16:24
I think, in the same way that a person's frame of mind when going to a dealership is going to have an impact, I think, their environment and their ability to kind of think and dream, you know, with some clarity, and you can imagine, you know, if anybody can do that at the car show with, you know, thousands of people around to have the clarity to say, like you know, this is the car I really want to try and get.
Omar: 16:47
You know, thousands of people around to have the clarity to say, like you know, this is the car I really want to try and get you know in my next purchase. You know it takes a lot of clarity with, like you know, kids screaming and, you know, people bumping into one another. And so I think it's really important in a person's personal collection to have that kind of atmosphere, but especially in the dealerships. And you know, I think we've seen that over the years where you really have seen a change in the way dealerships have been set up for people to really, you know, have the kind of spatial and sensual experience that is going to allow for that dreaming to happen. You know, like I think that's it right, like I think I can't imagine in some of those other spaces with the chaos and not taking anything away from them. I mean it just so happened that Audi really wanted to go for it in this scenario, but with the other ones, I mean I found it overwhelming. Yeah, yeah, like I said, rever mean I found it overwhelming.
MC: 17:48
Yeah, yeah, like I said, reverence is kind of the word and it made me my first instinct. It made me want to put my hands on the vehicles. I needed to touch something and the other ones, I will say frankly, made me not want to. I was, like, too afraid to touch this. I went oh, I feel like I can see this in my life and that's just, I think, such a phenomenal feat.
Omar: 18:11
Yeah, Well, yeah, exactly, you know, I think your environment shapes that confidence too, right? Like it shapes, you know, whether or not you're going to actually grab that handle and, you know, open the door and sit down. Some of those environments may be projects. That's not something you're supposed to do, but in this case, I think there's time and space to do that, and it's designed for that sort of experience.
MC: 18:44
Well, like I said, phenomenal. I really enjoyed it. I wish everyone could be here to see what we saw. Of course, we did take some videos and, as we're speaking, we're going to we're going to inject some of the video that we took of the space so that people can at least experience it who couldn't be here. As we wind down, I would love more and more people to become familiar with your work because I think what I experienced was just mind-blowing. How can those listening and watching connect with you and learn more about your firm?
Omar: 19:11
Oh, thank you, Probably check out some of the stuff we do on Instagram. It's probably, you know, it's always sort of the easiest way. Og underscore architect and, as I mentioned, jeff Shaw, jeffrey, the creator on Instagram. You know his love affair with Cafe Racers through the years and cars which he makes you know through Kickmoto. That's been a big. You know I love cars, but not in the same way as him, I think. Oh yeah, it's been a huge kind of itch scratcher for both of us. Pretty awesome, that's amazing Omar Gandhi.
MC: 19:44
thank you so much for joining me on the Dealer Playbook Podcast. Appreciate it very much.
Thank you.
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