Go to COSMO for fun, " new scene of content" to build China's trendy cultural utopia

Starting with the graffiti on the facade and a 6.5-meter-tall iconic blue rabbit art installation, COSMO, like its own definition of "youth magnetism," has attracted a spontaneous flow of loose, self-contained niche culture brands to the venue, including 1807, Randomevent®, AFGK of China's most popular rapper Ma Siwei, A Few Good Kids, OLD ORDER, LIVING TOWN, Saint Hill and other first stores in Chengdu or even Southwest China here. The former department store is no longer exists, but replaced by a super trendy cultural factory.

Obviously, this trendy mall, which is independent from the traditional commercial context, is redefined as a super symbol representing Chengdu rap, skateboard, electronic music, retro, biker and other niche cultures to attract young people to "come and play".

For traditional businesses, this is a business revolution that starts with content and scenes, and "new scenes of content" is the keyword for this curated business.

The design strategy of "new scenes of content" was proposed by Oft Interior, a Hong Kong-based design company. With its keen sense of trendy culture and understanding of Chengdu's local pioneer culture, Oft Interior takes "entertainment, interaction and experience" as the core of its design. The design interconnects emotion, culture, experience and scene, creating a new scene for the new youth to accommodate multiple contents, and the commercial space is both a carrier of cultural output and a symbol to convey information.

01、IDENTITY

New Scene Revolution, Creating Identity with Design

COSMO was built in 2007 in Chengdu's most prosperous Yanshikou shopping district, formerly known as Shangpu Fortune Center. As the city center shifted, the old commercial complex, like Yanshikou, became a familiar daily sight to young people. In 2023, this obsolete shopping center successfully broke through with a "new scenes of content".The shopping behavior here becomes a more exploratory and curious experience of opening blind boxes, and at the same time, the national trendy culture with strong local attributes of Chengdu is pushed to the top.

With the development of business in a more segmented and refined direction, "scene", which emphasizes the connection between people and fields, has become a new connection point, linking niche culture and specific people's needs. The "scene" has become an important medium linking consumers to brands, consumers to consumers, and consumers to products.

In fact, this new scene revolution is to use design to create an identity for consumers who are not bound by the mainstream culture, so that the space and the identity of consumers can be matched and confirmed, resonating with each other.

COSMO's clientele is very vertical and precise, mainly the young group of Generation Z who love trendy culture. Oft Interior takes the creation of identity as the starting point of design, extracts the theme, function, content and other information, and constitutes the scene with three elements: visual iconic, scene uniqueness and concept thematic. Through explicit visual symbols and implicit design logic, the abstract concept is transferred into sensory experience to convey to users.

Through the subtle guidance of design, the relationship between consumers and the mall changes. The mall transitions from a shopping place for a short stay to a circle gathering place where they can stay for a long time. The super symbol not only has symbolic meaning, but its gravitational force also lies in: allowing consumers to gain a sense of identity and belonging here and be themselves more easily and comfortably.

02、SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP

Visual symbols x implicit logic, reshape offline social relationship

With CG animation electronic screens, stainless steel, stucco paint, metal components and distant spatial partitions, Oft Interiors uses the most intuitive design language and techniques to complete the dismantling and reconstruction of trendy culture, creating a cool and technological atmosphere of high street catwalk.

Exposed water pipes, air ducts and electrical ducts; square columns of fair-faced concrete; large artificial matte gray cement tiles; original designed LED light-transmitting panels and fluorescent tubes; horizontal and vertical smooth lines, coarse and bare steel and concrete surfaces ......All of them present an empty "industrial ruin style " texture.

The high degree of unity of this scene is narrowing the gap between objective reality and the ideal. Oft Interiors uses the most expressive visual symbols to create social currency, making young people begin to think about the relationship between culture and space, triggering the internal aesthetic resonance of the trendy consumer group.

In addition, the design also deliberately creates a social relationship of "watching" and "being watched", where consumers are both participants of the scene and the trendy culture itself, and where value and identity are brought into play. Driven by both environment and culture, consumers are deeply involved in social media, expressing their opinions on trendy cultural issues and spontaneously completing the communication behavior of "check in", forming a closed loop of online and offline media communication.

The hidden design logic revolves around commercial content operation.

In order to meet COSMO's positioning as a curated business, Oft Interiors reserves more exhibition space to meet young people's demand for freshness, to provide convenience for personalized extension of the store, and to carry COSMO, the brand's continuous content output and brand expression. Such a "new scene of content", which can accommodate multiple and flexible capabilities, is becoming the future design trend of shopping malls.

Unlike other public areas, the exhibition area is more open, with geometric floor tile parquet and giant ceiling echoing up and down to form a soft partitioned field. Designers introduce ideas of the catwalk, where consumers are not the audience but the protagonists of the catwalk. Events like Pioneering art exhibition, brand launch events, music scene, trendy retail flash mob, independent designer SHOWROOM 3.0 and so on, also happens here naturally.

The ceiling is the most prominent clue in the whole scene, the designer uses different materials and forms of lighting to shape each floor and each partition environment, to guide the touring movement and create the space atmosphere.

The ceiling of the first floor is dominated by openwork metal panels or metal mesh.

The second floor incorporates wavy metal panels, large triangular lights and white luminous light film.

The third floor is partitioned with obvious strip lights and downlights.

Such a uniquely inclusive and free spatial form is a rebellion against traditional commercial culture, and the differentiated design emphasizes that each young person is a unique being.

At the same time, the sustainability of the scene is also one of the key points of COSMO design. From the perspective of time dimension, a single scene cannot meet the business operation cycle of 3-5 years, the design needs to make the space scene more flexible and changeable, so that the scene can carry out the superposition of space and brand. The mall design and the trendy brand coincide with each other. As the background of highlighting the trendy culture, The mall not to take away the main character is also an important consideration of this design.

The scene itself is both a carrier of trendy cultural happenings and also participates in different cultural collisions, triggering more new content generation.

03、USER THINKING

User thinking design unlocks new traffic codes in shopping malls

If visual symbols extend the imagination of trendy culture and senses, then the deeper logic to complete this imagination comes from "user thinking". The so-called "user thinking" simply means "user-centered", providing a variety of targeted products and services to meet the various personalized and segmented needs of customers.

Many people wonder why COSMO bathroom can become a traffic code. A functional space has become a must-see "attraction", in addition to the designers' pre-determination and translation of young aesthetics, there is also a concentrated show of "user thinking".

In the bathroom, the designer uses the reflection relationship of the mirror to create visual illusion. When people are in different positions, different distances, angles, different effects will be produced.This montage of space design makes consumers feel like they are in a movie, finding their most complete selves through countless shots and splices.

In the final part of the consumer experience, Oft Interiors accurately grasp the psychology of consumers, using the language of design to dissolve the stereotypical impression of the public on the functional space, to create a surprising experience for consumers. Each space here is treated equally. They take into account the basic needs and special needs of consumers outside the consumer behavior, which is the typical user thinking and service.

Undoubtedly, when design focuses on commercial space research and habitat life development, all design extensions should focus on "people" , which will resonate with business values and cultural trends, and provide scenario solutions for new consumer brands. In this way, it can help brands realize the value of the engine that points to scenario-driven growth.

COSMO and Oft Interiors use "user thinking" as a guide to explore the transformative power of trends, creating a community space for clients that is not commercially driven but culturally based, and taking the opportunity to connect deeply with consumers.

The success of COSMO reflects that consumers need a space where they can create common memories and empathy, and the construction of "new scenes of content" provides a spiritual territory for niche culture that is not limited by time and space. At COSMO, everyone is a cultural evangelist and creator. The new scene and contents are constantly created to push Chinese trendy culture to the front of the stage.