Turn Back Time

Results of the competition

Winner

Propagandizing Mall - implanting modern control

The project questioned the methodology of gentrification architecture and its political implication of lifestyle influence if we turn back time. Size of the mall matters. As a religion, royal families and scholars dominate the social influence hence the urban fabric. The size of the new mall challenges the old types by giving axiality a new dimension.

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Fig: 1 – Crossroads – A path of multiple possibilities visited by everyone – An illustration

Premise

Every path mankind has taken so far is a result of many tiny forked alternatives where one was chosen over the other and that iterated over millenniums to shape our lifestyle today.

It is that experience of making choices/decisions that have taught us most of our lessons today that we pass on to people and it is the basis of wisdom mankind has developed so far. Evolution has something that has spanned overages and not a few years, and these layers continue to shape us every day. 

But human nature is sophisticated and its alternative has continued to baffle sociologists for ages. The fear of making risky choices in realities referring to the conventional mindset evidently contains a human mindsets a lot. Invisible boundaries, divisions, orthodox ideas - all at the expense of stability and survival. Which shapes how and what our world has become. 

Fig: 2 – Cities wearing the same look world over

Identities

When we see our cities in this context, our accrued urban planning and collective construction knowledge has led us to a junction where most cities around the world are starting to look similar. 

This in a way springs back to the mindset we discussed earlier of conforming to ‘What works - Still works’. The functional and economy-oriented outlook has silently stagnated our imagination in urban environments around the world in general. 

The idea of this challenge is to shake our perception of urban environments today to civilizations that have existed in the past. 

THE QUESTIONS: What if we had a time machine to move the present-day scenario to a situation that could have happened with the different life choices we took as a community? What if we could shake this preconceived notion of the urban environment and connect a past fork situation to the present?

Fig: 3 – What if we could explore alternative realities – An illustration

Brief

Let’s take some of the common stores we see today and place them in a medieval context. What would Subway or Big bazaar look like if it was the Chola period? What would a Rajputana railway station look like? Such questions tend to make our thoughts run wild and also bring up some important questions like where we lost most of our culture and why.

The challenge here is to show what some of today’s public spaces would have looked like if they were built during old times or in other words – An alternative reality.  

Recreate illustrations of what different elements of a shopping mall would’ve looked like in medieval times, with materials, aesthetics, and social norms back then. The aim is to make it relatable to today’s times but in a different time period. 

Objectives

The turn back time design brief is to visually recreate a modern multi-level shopping mall in a cross over between Greek and Indus valley civilizations.

Fig: 4 – Indus Valley Civilization aerial view one of the ancient realities – An artist’s interpretation

Fig: 5 – The peak of Greek civilization – An artist’s impression

The challenge is visual-oriented hence, hence your imagination can soar. The idea is to reimagine the interior spaces, features, experiences, trade and commerce in a light based on the past as if the civilization never vanished until today. How brands of today's realities can be interpreted in their priorities? How can alternative civilizational qualities be induced into commerce centuries later? You can submit one large view with small details cropped out and explain for a clearer understanding. Include process level sketches as well. 

THE QUESTIONS: What if we had a time machine to move the present-day scenario to a situation that could have happened with the different life choices we took as a community? What if we could shake this preconceived notion of the urban environment and connect a past fork situation to the present? 

Deliverables

 

• You have to deliver a graphic/visual outcome representing the given subject, based on the following outlines.
• Only one final graphic design needs to be submitted. The image should be of size [2362px x 3543px ] or [200mm x 300mm in 300 dpi] in portrait or landscape digital format (JPEG only).
• On the same sheet format, the design process/iterations that lead to the final graphic should be depicted sequentially in the image below. You can upload the design process/iterations in the form of multiple images after the final graphic design is uploaded.