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Project: Jusco Shopping Center Location: Nagoya, Japan Description: 1.5 million sf shopping mall Client: Aeon Jusco is a new kind of shopping center prototype that focuses on the needs of a younger, more media-savvy consumer group, creating a more conducive environment to engage the marketplace, be entertained and build COMMUNITY. We worked with the existing Jusco mall formula to find new ways to engage the users’ expectations for information, accessibility, entertainment, connectedness and community. We introduced new spatial and formal species to the standard mall ECOLOGY producing hybrids, mutations, and other products of a healthy ecosystem. The design relied on a highly specific set of experiences rather than on formal planning. Unlike conventional mall models which reduce the multiplicity of LOGICS in its ecosystem, our strategy entails heterogeneity and the emergence of diverse experiences. Each space has an ‘interface’, be it a storefront, advertising or media element, that promotes a different SPEED and scale of experience. We created a secondary circulation system of opportunistic paths called ‘noodles’. The result of the ‘noodle’ strategy is to upset the formulaic perceptual relationships in the mall and create a complexity of ownership and increased edge condition that is specific to the issues of retail shopping but which mimics a vibrant and dynamic ecosystem. The project recognizes how technology and media impedes on ones personal FREEDOM and seeks a commensurate return; what do you get back for digesting the exigencies of modern consumer life? Rather than being only media receptors, the mall users customize the media and manipulate it to aggregate and reinforce diverse groups or communities. Cellular phones are used to get information and to customize advertising. Closed-circuit camera stations are used to make announcements, attract compatriots or merely to exhibit one’s personal style. Media ‘clusters’ provide points of contact for diverse lifestyle groups. All told, the users are EMPOWERED to use the media in as many ways as it attempts to use them. |