Jungle Race by 100architects

Complted in 2018 by 100architects. Jungle Race is a 1,200 m2 indoor intervention designed to reactivate sparsely used areas in a shopping mall, occupying the entire 2nd floor and with special emphasis on one of the corridors without any commercial shopfronts.

Architect: 100architects
Client: The Place (Nanfung Group)
Location: The Place, Changming District, Shanghai, China
Year: 2018
Built area: 1,200 m2
Design team: Marcial Jesus, Javier Gonzalez, Anshuman Roy
Photography: Amey Kandalgaonkar

From the architect: Due to the lack of shopfronts, that corridor seemed like a back of house residual space with poor pedestrian circulation. The client envisioned to turn it into a family-oriented entertaining space.

However, intervening the entire floor was challenging because the normal course of the commercial activity could not be affected by the intervention. Therefore, a 2D graphic on the ground was the approach taken, proposing a kids-oriented path within the course of the adults’ circulation.

Within this conditioning framework was born Jungle Race, a creative & surreal racing track throughout the entire floor of a shopping mall, which reached its peak of surrealism within the corridor with an explosion of colors and immersive graphics.

Themed as a jungle, with animals and nature-related elements which added value to the immersive experience, the racing track would colonize floor, walls and ceiling of the corridor, becoming tunnel of fun, a bent surreal canvas for expelling kids’ imagination to another world.

The space was designed as a circuit of eventful surprises, from the perspective of generating an experience, an experiential route with its own rhythm of eventful situations and interactive elements to be traveled by kids and adults alike.

In collaboration with Squiggle Labs, we implemented lighting interaction throughout the tunnel, embedded in mushrooms and traffic lights, which would light up every time kids were approaching with their cars.

What before was a dead corridor with no use whatsoever, turned into a lively tunnel of fun where kids and parents could have some quality time together, which was what client had envisioned at first.

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BEFORE & AFTER: