A contemporary retail high street in Amritsar, bringing architectural identity and consumer experience into a shared urban setting.

Walk In Square, Amritsar, by ZHCollective | Habitat Architects, has received jury recognition in the Retail Outlets category at the ET DesignScape Awards 2026.

Under the design leadership of Zafar Choudhary, Principal Architect | Founding Partner & CEO, the completed project explores how a retail high street can establish a distinctive architectural presence while inviting people to engage with the place.

An architectural identity for the high street

The design brings different façade treatments into a coherent overall composition. Individual frontages have their own expression, giving the development a changing rhythm and a recognisable collective identity.

This relationship matters at two scales. Seen as a whole, the architecture establishes the development’s presence within Amritsar. At closer quarters, differences between façades offer visual interest and invite discovery. The architectural challenge was to allow that variety while maintaining a clear relationship between the parts.

At Walk In Square, the façade is therefore integral to the conception of the high street. It gives character to individual buildings and contributes to how the larger place is encountered.

Designing from the visitor’s perspective

The consumer’s experience was considered alongside the architectural composition. How does the development read on arrival? What distinguishes one frontage from another, and what invites someone to explore further?

The varied façade treatments address these questions by giving different parts of the high street identifiable character. Their purpose is to evoke a response and sustain curiosity as visitors encounter the development. Architectural expression becomes part of the experience of choosing where to look, approach and enter.

The design also considers the time spent between shops. People arrive together, wait for one another and make spontaneous decisions about where to go next. A high street must accommodate these ordinary moments alongside its commercial activity.

This is the consumer-first thinking behind Walk In Square: considering the visitor’s experience from the outset, with interaction and discovery informing the architectural ambition.

A shared destination

For ZHCollective | Habitat Architects, retail architecture carries a responsibility to the wider setting it creates. Each business occupies its own premises, but together the buildings shape a place that people experience collectively.

Walk In Square brings this thinking into built form. Its architectural identity connects the individual retail destinations, with the ambition of making the high street itself a meaningful part of a visit.

The jury recognition at the ET DesignScape Awards 2026 is an occasion to acknowledge the collective effort behind the completed project, from architectural conception through technical resolution and construction.

Congratulations to team ZHC | HA, with special recognition for Nitin Sharma, Gary Walia and Arshnoor Kaur Walia and their diligent teams for preparing and coordinating the award submission.

Our sincere thanks to our client, Walk In Square, for their trust in the practice and commitment to the project, and to the consultants and construction partners whose expertise helped bring it to completion.

Explore Walk In Square, Amritsar.