For 130 years, Buchan has created designs which have helped shape communities and experiences, addressing each new project with an exploratory and collaborative approach. To mark this milestone anniversary, we are paying homage to the designs that have made our practice what it is today by envisioning a new future for projects past. In this article, we explore how phygital space may transform the retail experience of the future, using a reimagining of the iconic Raffles City Shanghai set in the year 2050 as our inspiration.

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Buchan’s journey in China began over 20 years ago with the realisation of Raffles City Shanghai, the first CapitaLand project in Mainland China. Spanning 8 floors, the centre’s mammoth retail podium has been designed to enhance efficient travel and energise the space through clear sightlines throughout which invite shoppers to explore the centre’s numerous fashion, lifestyle and food and beverage offerings.

Here, the customer shapes their experience and navigates the centre through movement – but what if we could digitise this retail discovery experience? And in turn, create a more immersive, convenient, and personalised shopping encounter for visitors?

The technology of interactive and immersive media displays that exists today has only touched the surface in shaping our unique experiences of cities. We speculate an evolution of this technology where in 2050 the physical and digital desires could culminate in phygital space.

Phyigital: “the idea of using technology to bridge the digital world with the physical world… with the purpose of providing a unique interactive experience for the user.” – Monash University

Our phygital concept “Objects of Desire”, depicts a sculptural multimedia path, a sinuous light beam, where each viewers’ thoughts, desires, and wishes become visible to them, shaping a unique and immersive experience for each individual within the space it’s set.

When applied to a physical retail setting such as the atrium of Raffles City Shanghai, we can see how this technology could be embraced to anticipate customer needs, both fundamental and veiled, to guide their experience with the centre.  The result is a retail journey which merges the data-driven customisation of online shopping with the instant gratification of traditional centre.