Indigo
Beijing, China
Client: Swire Properties Ltd.
Completion: 2012
Indigo, Beijing, is developed principally by the Swire Group and is one of seven developments the company has in China. It comprises of an 87,000 sq.m. shopping mall, an office tower, and the East hotel. It is located outside of the central business district and is a mid-range mall aimed more for the family market.
Our work for the shopping mall developed two separate concepts, one for the external and one for the internal, due to particular requirements that we identified during our strategy development stage.
Externally, the mall was set back from the main street and, whilst architecturally elegant and modern, did not project a retail image. As a consequence it was easy to mistake the building for an office or industrial building. First, we designed large advertising lightboxes on the façade and along the street to promote products and tenants. Second we developed a concept based on the tangram puzzle blocks for the directional/promotional signage, to promote a feeling of fun and variety.
At the core of the building, surrounded by the main retail arcades, was a large and focal food court that was branded “Winter Garden” and our work internally focussed on drawing guests through the mall to the Winter Garden. In addition to signage we were also responsible for designing the visual identity for the Winter Garden. The signage adopted two key elements in a variety of applications; the first was to integrate a ‘ribbon’ into the ceiling mounted signage, to add a dynamic feel to the mall and to suggest a motion through the mall to the winter garden. The second, mainly for freestanding signage, directly referenced gardens and plants by creating over-simplified “stems” for the signage, which not only tied back to a literal garden but continued the dynamic created by the ribbon signage.