The proliferation of outlet malls in China mirrors the economic excesses of a rapidly developing country. Yet the urbanism of these new sites of consumption retain the characteristics of such developments from the west – often exotically themed, with street elevations spruced up by the thin application of post-modern facades to banal structure several bays deep.
This project takes on the problem of the thinness of the store-front, a most crucial aspect to retail spaces, by proposing the extension and multiplication of these facades on the interior. The commercial front, with all its ideas of display, framing, and consumption, become replicated as interior partition walls. The proliferation of viewing frames on the interior becomes the vehicle for the display of more products, fulfilling the program of the multi-brand store – each designer is provided their own “storefront”.
Yet the operation of the store is not merely one of stimulating consumption – through constant reframing, customers are as much on display as the products themselves. A multimedia circuit of projections highlights the ephemerality of consumption, and in an uncanny move, mannequins triggered by sensors rotate to face the customers, returning the gaze from object to subject.
The proliferation of outlet malls in China mirrors the economic excesses of a rapidly developing country. Yet the urbanism of these new sites of consumption retain the characteristics of such developments from the west – often exotically themed, with street elevations spruced up by the thin application of post-modern facades to banal structure several bays deep.
This project takes on the problem of the thinness of the store-front, a most crucial aspect to retail spaces, by proposing the extension and multiplication of these facades on the interior. The commercial front, with all its ideas of display, framing, and consumption, become replicated as interior partition walls. The proliferation of viewing frames on the interior becomes the vehicle for the display of more products, fulfilling the program of the multi-brand store – each designer is provided their own “storefront”.
Yet the operation of the store is not merely one of stimulating consumption – through constant reframing, customers are as much on display as the products themselves. A multimedia circuit of projections highlights the ephemerality of consumption, and in an uncanny move, mannequins triggered by sensors rotate to face the customers, returning the gaze from object to subject.
The proliferation of outlet malls in China mirrors the economic excesses of a rapidly developing country. Yet the urbanism of these new sites of consumption retain the characteristics of such developments from the west – often exotically themed, with street elevations spruced up by the thin application of post-modern facades to banal structure several bays deep.
This project takes on the problem of the thinness of the store-front, a most crucial aspect to retail spaces, by proposing the extension and multiplication of these facades on the interior. The commercial front, with all its ideas of display, framing, and consumption, become replicated as interior partition walls. The proliferation of viewing frames on the interior becomes the vehicle for the display of more products, fulfilling the program of the multi-brand store – each designer is provided their own “storefront”.
Yet the operation of the store is not merely one of stimulating consumption – through constant reframing, customers are as much on display as the products themselves. A multimedia circuit of projections highlights the ephemerality of consumption, and in an uncanny move, mannequins triggered by sensors rotate to face the customers, returning the gaze from object to subject.
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