Creative Director Yohany Albornoz as one of the ICSC Centerbuild Leaders under 40.

ARY Concept’s Creative Director and Co-Founder Yohany Albornoz was included as one of the 17 awardees of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) inside the program “ICSC CenterBuild Leaders under 40, Class of 2020”. This event took place virtually from Dec 2nd to Dec 4th, 2020. 

This list and award honors the next generation of national leaders in the retail and real estate industries. It also recognizes their accomplishments and achievements within their businesses, as well as their professional careers. 

During years her objective has been to bring solutions to the industry in terms of time, aesthetics, and costs.

She explains: “One of the problems we saw in the market was the lead time to open a new cart or kiosk for short-term leasing. We created a predesigned modular system adaptable to multiple types of merchandise and carts. This project decreased the time from 3 weeks to 1 week, and from $6,000.00 per unit to a place between $2,000.00 to $3,000.00 per unit. Each shopping center may have between 20 to 70 units between carts and kiosks, thus generating significant savings in time and money for all parties”, one example on this link.

This option has been so successful that some modules were purchased directly by Simon Property Group and Taubman Centers for Dolphin Mall, so they could have their modules ready for the next interested tenant.

During 2020 the team focused on proposing innovative projects in the face of the challenges of the year. One of them was “We Belong Together, Pop Up Shops & Human Activation”, a proposal to transform the space to bring a new dynamic to the common areas of shopping centers with 3 objectives:

1. To promote a human experience of belonging and celebration to bring joy and traffic to shopping malls and local communities.
2. Promote a program to help small businesses recovery, giving them the option to rotate and display their products for two weeks with less cost and risk than regular short-term leasing, in addition to training in their area.
3. Drive the transformation of retail, merging the physical and digital world.

She believes spaces can influence people so much that they can transform the retail industry. The studies that she has developed since graduating as an Architect in Venezuela, have earned her two Visual Victories Awards in 2016 and 2017, which are now complemented with the ICSC distinction.