Buying: Non Architecture Competitions

Iconostatis․

Where your treasure is, your heart will be also.
Matthew, 6:21

In early Christianity, the Iconostasis was a screen that separated the nave from the sanctuary of a church, a role now usurped by iPhones, pervasive advertising, and social media. Religion and consumerism are now two sides of the same coin, with a consumeristic form of life performing the religious function of providing man with fleeting answers to the existential problem of meaning. To elaborate, consumption today is more than simply buying goods: it is a means of circulating symbols, meanings, identities, and belonging. Thus, like religion, consumerism is reinforced as a symbolic language. The use of this ‘language’ has enabled the creation of man’s personal identity, and is therefore tied to humanity’s quest for authenticity and expressivity.

With dying malls being turned into churches, and abandoned churches being transformed into nightclubs, one further questions the inextricable nature of these two primary forces that have dominated the Anthropocene. Iconostasis acknowledges (and celebrates) humanity’s suspension in these commercialized webs of significance that it has spun for itself. Perhaps the answers to our social, existential and transcendental questions lie within these complex webs. We must ask – should we worship www.amazon.god with reverential awe? (*all introspection to be posted on Twitter).

#yeIsRisen #churchMerch #askAndYe_ezy_ShallReceive #blackFridaysMatter #blessed

Presentation․
Functional․
Technical․

Finalist․

Non Architecture Competitions : Buying

The aim of the “Buying” competition was to develop design proposals for the shop typology, intended as a space – either material or immaterial – where goods or services are available to the public.
The participants were asked to create innovative and unconventional projects on this theme, questioning the very basis of the notion of the shop.
In recent years, a series of new initiatives have emerged in relation to the shopping experience.
Take for example IKEA’s app that lets users see products in their own space before purchasing them, by integrating ar technology; or ASOS mobile app, where users upload photos of looks they like and receive suggestions for a selection of similar styles to buy instantly. Even grocery shopping has become effortless with home delivery, and actually, one of the biggest supermarkets in Britain has developed an app, through which shoppers can have up to 20 items delivered to their door within an hour.
Fueled by technology shopping has evolved in unanticipated ways, with the biggest trend across all sectors, the fragmentation of the buying journey. This means that digital and physical are constantly interconnected providing the customers with the maximum of information prior to purchase, which in turn renders them a lot more powerful in making their own purchasing decisions.
Besides the technological conveniences, more and more brands find ways to enhance the shopping experience in their physical stores, aiming to obtain value beyond their commercial use, like London’s House of vans, which opened a custom BMX and skatepark in the bottom of its flagship store, or Nordstrom local, the innovative “service hub” the fashion brand has launched in the US, that has no inventory, but a pick-up service, tailors, personal stylists, a shoe-repair shop, a barber and other services.
Within this context, with critical thinking and creative attitude, the participants were urged to investigate how the shopping experience can be reformed in the future, and respectively, how the concept of the shop as a space with material and immaterial characteristics can be reinvented. Designers were asked to create an artifact, merging considerable programmatic innovation and valuable design tools. The proposal could be a device, a piece of furniture, an interior design project, a pavilion, a building or an urban plan. Scale of intervention, program dimensions and location were not given, and they were arranged by the participants to better suit their project.