The Red Planet is a public space intervention designed by 100architects to foster interactions, attract customers and enhance the experience in the privately-owned public space within an open-air retail street. Located in one of the biggest shopping centers in Shanghai, the installation is an unusual playground with organized spaces for both kids and adults.
“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,” explains 100architects’ team.
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”.
