The 21st China Retail Development Summit was held in Shanghai last month. The summit focused on key topics, including the synergy between digital technology and retail in the post-pandemic world. Benoy’s Shanghai Studio Project Director, Yejia Zhu attended the summit as the only speaker on design-related topics. From the perspective as an architect, she shared newly completed commercial projects as case studies, demonstrating how data and information technology can be incorporated into the design to create people-centric ecological community.
The pandemic over the past three years has upended brand building and physical retail industry. Retail brands in China yield lower margins due to intense competition, innovation and quality assurance ambitions. Furthermore, Generation Z will become the main consumer driving force in China’s consumption trends. New models have begun to take hold for commercial retailers to rebound more rapidly, leverage digitalization, attract high-quality users and create immersive consumer experience.
With ‘Shaping a sustainable world’ as the theme, Yejia shared how Benoy and its sister companies Pragma Consulting, Uncommon Land and Holmes Wood, utilise digital technology and explore sustainable development in their respective specialised areas to comprehensively serve property owners and projects. For example, data can be used to create commercial spaces that can provide a more enjoyable experience for consumers. Particularly, Yejia cited the newly opened Wuhan Joy City as an example and shared her experience of the project’s design processes with guests.
The Wuhan Joy City project used data analytics from the design to project implementation, in order to offer the city and the people a vibrant and inviting community centre. Set in the centre of the southern façade of Joy Valley is a giant interactive display measuring 21×37 m, similar to the proportions of a mobile phone. Thanks to interactive display technology, the screen helps to flexibly create various ambiances at different times in the inner valley according to monitored changes in visitor activity, becoming its main attraction and an exhibition area during important activities. The courtyard lighting box and the adjacent textured curtain walls form multiple contrasted layers of light and shadow, attracting passers-by and injecting dynamism into the commercial project.
Yejia stated, “We utilise data and incoporate local culture throughout the architectural cycle, to maximise the unique characteristics of each project and create interactive commercial spaces. This is our understanding of how commercial spaces are shaped. While realising economic returns, but not limited to its function itself, the design must stimulate the community, respond to new opportunities in blurring the boundaries and continue to create sustainable value.”
Organised by Noppen Group, the summit invited experts from renowned retail brands, e‑commerce platforms, shopping malls, supermarkets, convenience stores and other industries, and leading technology service providers to discuss important contemporary topics, such as brand innovation and user growth for retailers in retail 4.0, efficient operation of public/private domain traffic and consumer experience improvement through smart stores, as well as how to find optimal partners during the process. The summit was also attended by operational management representatives from leading technology and commercial companies, including Beidou Technology, Adobe, Amer Sports, Aegean Group, Dongdu International, Lingang Group, BFC, Kering Group and Keppel Land.
