- Area: 245.0 m²
- Year: 2017
- Photographs: Amey Kandalgaonkar
Text description provided by the architects. The Red Planet is a public space intervention designed to foster interactions, attract customers and enhance the experience in the privately-owned public space within an open-air Retail Street. Life Hub @ Daning, a 250,000 sqm mixed-use development with 110,000 sqm shopping mall, is one of the hottest shopping centers in Shanghai, due to its condition of the open-air retail street.
From the very beginning, the marketing team of Life Hub @ Daning insisted on creating something IMAGINATIVE, INSPIRATIONAL & INNOVATIVE. Something unexpected beyond any typical decorative installation, that would attract kids and adults alike to come and use it, rather than pass by and observe it. An intervention that, by itself, would turn a circulation area into a “SPACE” to stop & stay, where their customers could bring their kids and families and spend some quality time interacting with other kids and families.
Our proposal arose from a SURREAL approach, from the intention of breaking the conventional rules of perception, of what is already conceived as reality, in order to trigger kids’ imagination and creativity as well as immersing them in a colorful experience. An unexpected place for passersby.
The Red Planet features a bubbling basketball field which serves as a surreal playground, rather than a typical basketball field, providing an artificial topography for playing, climbing, sliding, sitting, laying, and many other gerunds out of the kids’ own imagination of how to colonize and use the space in ways we did not even imagine at first. To enhance the narrative of the environment, a bent basketball basket was introduced, hosting in it LED lights to illuminate the area.
Other features such as a racing track defining the border of the installation, chalkboard pyramids as both, obstacles and creativity platforms, benches for parents and other random games, complemented the range of fun activities that both, kids and adults, were able to undertake. The monochromatic treatment, with shades of red, was also applied on top of existing urban furniture and decorative elements from the place, aiming to generate a more immersive experience onto the surreal “Red Planet”.
