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Thesis Preparation

Takuya Imoto

INTRODUCTION

Background My first bachelor is in science education. I was a teacher for over six years in Japan. Thus, my design process tends to be scientific. I also believe a quote from Maya Lin I feel that I exist on the boundaries somewhere between science and art, art and architecture, public and private, east and west. Im always trying to find a balance between these opposing forces. Interior Designers are required to look at both artistic and scientific aspects. A good mixture of the two aspects creates a good design solution. My initial interest in retail space design began in my childhood. My parents ran five different types of clothing and cosmetic stores. My father designed the stores, and the stores needed layout or display changes every season. I grew up watching those busy retail store events. Because of the busy life of my parents, I didnt want to be involved in retail business. Although I chose to be a school teacher, I realized that there were some commonalities between these two different fields. First of all, both retail business and teaching jobs are required the attention of their targets, customers and students. A retail interior is designed to spotlight the products and create an attractive environment for the customers. Similarly, a good lecture attracts the students and can hold their attention. I published many teaching methods and lecture plans. My focus in the teaching method was always how to attract the student to the study subjects. Considering human behavior within a space continues to be important in interior design. Studying human attention in a space has been a continuous work process since I began teaching. The other similarity between teaching and design is user participation. When I worked on a governmental mathematic education project, one of the main focuses of the study was a participatory learning process. I will omit the details, but instead of focusing on

instructors teaching skills, we studied how to create opportunities in which the students made spontaneous decisions in a mathematical problem solving process. We designed a class in which students customized a learning process by themselves. In a retail space, interior design and signage strongly affect the customers decision to purchase. I believe that an interaction between the customer and interior design would stimulate retail business. From my

experience, there are a lot of similarities between creating a class and designing a retail space.

These past experiences naturally led me to choose a retail space design as my thesis topic.

Thesis Rationale Recently, people tend to shop more online, and physical retail stores are in a more difficult situation. The most advantages of online shopping are customizing and hyperlinks. As you search a product, products are filtered by your preference or shopping history. It is very easy to find the exact product you are looking for. Then, as you pick a product, the shopping site will suggest another product which you may need. During the purchasing process, personal data is being collected and stored in a system. Unfortunately, you never know what kind of data is stored and sometimes the personal data is used improperly. Thus, there is a negative side of online shipping, but we cannot deny the usefulness. Online shopping is a very personalized process, because the system reflects all your personal data. I call this product finding process Active Search. In contrast, A physical retail store design reflects store owners intent more so than the individual customers data. The customer searches for a product in the displays that doesnt include the customers intend. I call this type of product finding process Passive Search. Since store most factures are mostly fixed, there is not much opportunity of active search in a conventional retail stores. Today, online shopping is no longer desktop shopping. Everyone has an onsite shopping customizing tool, or Smartphone. Customers are able to scan the barcode tag, check the price, see product reviews and get a products specifications, as well as upload an image on facebook and get immediate user feedback. Smartphone enables the customers to bring active

searching in a physical store. Thus, active search is no longer only for online shopping. Just like car became prevalent and shopping malls appeared, smartphone technology has started to change our shopping patterns dramatically. Now we are searching for a location, broadcasting video, paying bills on a small mobile screen. It is almost impossible to separate our lives from the data network. All new devices have network access or data transfer interface. Retail interior design needs to involve those data transfer technologies. You would aware so many data interface around you, and you are caring gigabytes information in a tiny memory device. This is a paradigm shift of life style. Interior designers need to consider this shifting as well. Corroborating interior design and digital data sounds still very futuristic science fiction world.

However, the shopping paradigm shift is sure to come and interior design has to move to the next stage.

Cellphone is a key interface. As I mentioned, cellphones permeate our lives and there are so many services based on mobile technology. Most services are compact versions of the website services, such as searching for a product or updating information. The cellphone is thus, just like a downsized laptop. However, because of the mobility of the cellphone, a new technology, universal control interface, has been developing. For example, you can control your home lighting, temperature, security, audio system, etc from your cellphone. You might argue that we already have these

technologies on our laptop. However, because of the mobility of the cellphone, this interface can be brought everywhere and is an interface between you and your surroundings; this mobile technology could therefore control a retail store interior and customize the space per your preferences. Normally, public spaces are designed to fit everybodys needs. Therefore, the design is far from an individuals need. There are building codes that ensure that everyone can use a space: however, because a space is not customized per person, we have to obey codes that dont necessarily fit our individual needs.

Parametric design When you flip through interior design magazines, most of cutting-edge designs have some complexity as their main feature, such as 3D wall systems or organic shaped ceilings, which never could be done without computer technologies. Revert Venturi said I like complexity and contradiction in architecture. I agree with that. But why do we need complexity? Complexity doesnt mean chaos. Complexity is a result of systems. A system consists of sub-systems, and the sub-systems consist of sub-sub-systems. An aggregation of many systems looks like a complicated figure. However, if you look at a sub-system, each system does a simple task. Complexity is a pattern of numerous simple things. Once you have a system, you can create innumerable versions of outcomes by changing a parameter. This type of design is called parametric design. Parametric design is a design process, not an architectural style. However,

outcomes of the parametric design process are similar in terms of style, so the word Parametric is sometimes used as a style in unofficially. Patrik Schumacher, who is a partner of Zaha Haddid published a parametric manifesto on his website. (This part is being edited)

Parametric design changes a design process As parametric design process is a systematic design process, the design can be altered by changing parameters. This fact brings a great shift in my approach to design process.

Conventionally, in my design process, concept development, schematic design and design development were required before a computer modeling was started. Since each interior element is related to each other, it is hard to change a form after the space has been built. One small change may cause a whole space to be revised. To avoid that, I need to have a very clear vision of the space before the final modeling process. As I said, the parametric design process is transformable, so a designer is able to visualize and test many different patterns without rebuilding the whole model.

Grasshopper is a parametric modeling software which works with a modeling software Rhinoceros 3D. I will omit the details of the software, but Grasshopper changed my design process, not only in computer modeling phase, but also in my concept development phase. Parametric modeling process is a very mathematical and systematic process like computer programming. You need to think about many combinations of inputs and outputs and cause and result. First, you have to decompose your large idea to small components to create subsystems. Then, a main modeling system will be created by connecting the sub-systems. This process is the reverse of my conventional design process. My conventional design process was a composing process like building a Pyramid. A top stone of a pyramid is supported by the numerous stones underneath. The supporting stones were accumulated bottom to top in a certain manner and needed to remain in that form until the construction was completed. Similarly, in my design process, I always tried to find only one main system, and if the system didnt work, I would attempt to find a different main system. In contrast to this process, the

decomposing design process is similar to creating a symphony in an orchestra. A symphony is created by a harmony with many different type of instruments. The melody pattern depends on each instruments part and a conductor adjusts them for the a best result. Each instrument plays independent notes, but they come together to create the melody. Thinking of a design as a network of each independent element gives me a new perspective of design process.

Our lifestyle are in constant flux. As I mentioned regarding the cellphone technology, we live in a different situation from five years ago; iphone, facebook, cloud computer system are all technologies we didnt actively use five years ago. Now, new technologies connect our lives and data network systems. A cellphone is no longer just a phone, it is a data network interface.

Device-driven technology vs. Data-Driven technology Before explaining the above three questions, I have to explain what type of technology needs to be considered for the future. First, lets look at the futures in the past. Sci-Fi movie is a good reference to looked the futures which people have imagined in the past. I chose two movies to compare two different types of the futures, Metropolis and Minority Report. Metropolis was produced in 1923 by Fritz Lang in Germany. The move described the world in 2026. The movie made a feature of mass production, automation, and center control system. Minority Report described the world in 2057. In contrast to the movie Metropolis, the main futuristic technologies in Minority Report are data interface, software, network and personal identification. I call this type of technology data-driven technology. Of course, there are typical futuristic machines in both movies, such as fiying car, automatic driving system, and mega structures, but in Minority Report, each device or building has a network or data transfer interface. As you can see in the actual world, currently the widest diffused technology devices are the smartphone and mobile pad. These are completely data-driven devices. We use our cellphone not only as a phone, but also as an interface to the network systems, and we personalize its functions with applications. Oppositely, I call the technologies in the movie Metropolis Device-driven technology. This type of technology focuses on materials,

machines, central control, and automation and generally doesnt have a gateway to a data

network. It is a very standalone type of technology.

ABSTRACT You create comfortable surroundings in your room, a perfect chair height, a custom organized book shelf, the right illumination of the lighting and so on. In a public space, it is difficult to create a comfortable or attractive space for everybody, because each individual person has a different preference. Major retail businesses spend a large amount of time researching the customers preference, lifestyle and location as well as markets trend to create a space which meets most people preference. This design method is much with Benthams philosophy of utilitarianism. it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong". We

The project will create an interactive interior design with cellphone interface. As I mentioned repeatedly, I believe that cellphone will become our major interface for everything in the near feature. If we have a mobile interface, we can customize our environment anywhere. We dont need to share one design solution. Producers of goods no longer to please a certain target audience. As an interesting example, the newest Japanese rice cooker has an smartphone interface. You can control the cooking pattern of rice. It is surprising that even such a small electric appliance has started to use a smartphone interface. Needless to say, interior design should be collaborated with these interface technologies. There are three major area of interactive design in my project.

1. Interactive attractions between an interior design and customers. 2. Non-universal design 3. A local store complex in a neighborhood : a shopping mall concept

Interactive Attractions How to get the attention of potential buyers is everything for in-store display and advertising. Since much of advertising has shifted to online, interior design should be related to online advertising. Using the cellphone as an interface between a store and customer is the main concept for this project.

Activity1: Organizing products based on personal preference The movable shoe display re-organizes products based on your preference data. You can organize the display by a type of shoes, color, price, material and so on. The embedded display indicates the location of a different size of the products on the storage shelf.

Activity2: Personalized entering experience The interior decoration on the ceiling near the entrance is an interactive object. You change the patterns and record them in your cellphone. The interior arch will change automatically your to recorded pattern every time you come into the store.

Activity3: Interactive mirror You scan the barcode of a product which transfers the data to an interactive mirror in the store. The mirror projects the products on you in the mirror. Of course, physical fitting is still important to check how it feels to war the product. However, it is not necessary carry around products since your choices will be saved in the database. The mirror also provides information on the material and maintenance of an item, so, the customer doesnt need to flip thorough the clothes to check the inside tag.

Activity4: 3D Mapping Mannequins 3d projection mapping is used for the mannequins and the cube store fixtures. The clothes on the mannequins are projected images. The customers are able to choose the clothing on the mannequins. 3D projection mapping is also being used on the cube store fixtures. The store fixture changes its shape and creates a unique effect on the surface. The image blow shows the same technologies being used on a building faade. The project was done by Brooks Patrick in Hamburg, Germany. Another example of this is the sculpture "cocoon" is done by the team DrawLight in collaboration with the artist Paola Epifani aka Rabarama.

Non-Universal Design Universal design was advocated by the architect Ronald Mace in 1985, who was the chief of the universal design center. The basic concept of Universal design is that 2all products and the building environment should aesthetic and usable to the greatest extent possible by everyone, regardless of their age, ability, or status in life. As you know, Universal design has brought

about great changes in our lives. Today, most front counters have a low setting part for children

and people in wheelchairs. Pictograms are more common in public spaces and contribute to remove linguistic barriers in international environments such as airports and train stations. However, Universal design is not always useful for everybody. For example, a low sink is useful for children and people in wheelchair, but it is inconvenient for non-handicap adults. The problem of Universal design is that many different types of the people have to share one design solution. One of the seven principals of Universal design is Equitable Use. If each person is able to use their personal data to customize the space or product, we dont have to share one design.

A local store complex covering in a neighborhood The largest benefit of cellphone technology is networking. By creating a connection of each product, regardless of what store it is in, customers can find more related products in the neighborhood. For example, if you find a pair of shoes, you can get information on related products in the local stores. Thus, maps and information desks are not necessarily. Since, cellphones and in-store information screens will provide this information. This technology connects independent local retail stores and changes a neighborhood as a large shopping mall. Additional Real-time evidenced based interior design A formal definition of Evidence based design is *A Process for the conscientious, explicit, and judicious used of current best evidence from research and practice in making critical decisions, together with informed clients, about the design of each individual and unique project. 1 To put it simply, design process should be driven by the opinions of knowledgeable clients and updated research. Since our lifestyle relies more and more on mobile digital technology, design process needs to consider the best current evidence of this use of technology. However, sometimes our lifestyle is changing too fast. Even some researched data from a few years ago wouldnt fit in the current situation. For example, Groupons first year growth rate was 2.241%.
1

Kirk Hamilt on, and Wat kins Wat kins, Evid ence-Bas ed Design for Multiple Building Types , Hob oken,NJ : J ohn Wiley & Sons, 2009 ), 9 .
2Universal

Design Living Laboratory, http://www.udll.com/media-room/articles/the-seven-principles-of-universal-design/.

Groupon greatly changed retail marketing in a year. Now coupon marketing became a necessity for every retail or restaurant business. A delay in following the current market situation causes crucial problems in retail business. The fashion industry changes its trends especially fast and interior design needs to catch up with these changes quickly. Shopping websites are

automatically customized based upon search and shopping history, suggesting new products to the customer. They are always systematically analyzing shopping behavior and transform accordingly. My basic idea is to bring an on-demand concept into interior design. I seek to bring those same advantages into an actual retail store design.

Thesis Position
HYPOTHESIS

As digital technologies have been developing rapidly, our shopping style and systems have been changing. Online sales increased 17.5% in the US in 2010 and occupy 7% of the total domestic retail sales. On the contrary, retail stores face a difficult situation and retail design is in need of change. By incorporating interior design and digital technology, retail stores will be more customizable by reflecting end-users behavior and preference.

Design Principal 1. Incorporation of interior design and new (existing) technologies. 2. Real-time evidence-based design. 3. Participant design by the customers. 4. Non-universal design. Customizable design. 5. Interactive shopping experience. 6. Networking with other local stores. 7. Gateway for a new type of vehicle 8. Integration with Smartphones. 9. Breakthrough, bottom-up design process. 10. A system of shopping.

Design Scale of the Connectivity Between Customers and Space 1. Interior Elements : Private 2. Interior Display: Semi-Private 3. Neighborhood: Public

Interior Elements This scale is the most personalized covering area such as bathroom, staircase and sitting room. Universal design is one solution for sharing one design; however, if you are allowed to control interior elements, you dont need to share the same design: the height of toilet stools or supporting bars is changeable with your interface device.

Interior Display This scale is semi-public. Customers can control the store display with their cellphones. This allows accessing to the products and changing a mood in the store.

Neighborhood This is the most public scale of the connectivity between customers and stores. Here a network of all products is created. Local stores in a neighborhood are connected by product information. Therefore, customers can find related items in the neighborhood.

Design Test Building Information Location : 3153 Broadway, Chicago IL Total : 2251 SF ( Ground level : 1080SF + Mezzanine Level 1,171 SF)

Retail Interior Space with integrated a smartphone technology. Tested Interior Elements 1. Patten changing interior faade and ceiling decoration 2. Movable wall store fixture

3. Transformable standalone store fixture 4. 3D mapping projection 5. Flexible wire structure display 6. Transformable staircase 7. Interactive mirror 8. Local store connectivity

Purpose The main purpose of the test is utilizing technologies in an interior space and store fixture. To make it possible interactive interior design, parametric design tools are necessary. Using parametric design process is very important of this test.

Tools To bring parametric design in to the design process, computer modeling software Grasshopper by Rovert Mcneel and Associates is used for some elements. In addition, Google Sketchup plugin Keyframe Animation is used to create interactive movement in the 3d model.

Process The building faade and ceiling decoration are created by Grasshopper. Therefore, the design patters are transformable by the parameters. Both design patterns are created by

combinations of straight lines. (Please reference the images of the renderings.) The faade line pattern is control by the density and the random wire connection from each support arm.

The wire ceiling decoration is controlled by parameters of the number of the converging points and wire density. Both numbers are randomized by the main parameter to create numerous patternts.

Simple interactive activities, such as stair case transformation and the interactive wall display, are created in Google Sketchup, instead of being controlled by setting parameters.

Thesis Project The thesis project will focus more on the technology aspect for the interface of interior design. Currently, I am planning to use Ghowl, Firefly and Touch Osc, which are tools for controlling 3d computer modele and a computerized physical model with a cellphone application.

Research Method Personal Reports Surveys: Researching the connectivity of local retail stores in a neighborhood. Transportation, walking distance, store location mapping, and type of products will be researched and compared with a large scale shopping mall. Eventually, a network of local retail stores using cellphone technologies will be suggested and integrated with interior design.

Literary Topics: Parametric design, Interactive design, Cellphone technologies, Universal design, ADA code, Retail design strategy and human behavior in a space.

Observation

Physical Field Survey: Site inventory, especially accessibility and gateway to the site. Street, sidewalk, parking, park, nature, culture, etc. Faade of the retail and restaurant design. Finding the commercial culture of the neighborhood.

Factual Statistics: Demographic data, cost of rental both residential and commercial space Reasons for closing of stores. Reviews on the internet site. Zoning.

Case Study Past projects of Interactive architectures/ fabrications

KEY TERMS Device-driven technology Data-driven technology Non universal design Active Search Passive Search Interactive architecture Kinetic architecture Hyperlink

BIBLIOGRAPHY Burry, J., & Burry, M. (2010). The new mathematics of architecture. London: Thames & Hudson. Iwamoto, L. (2009). Digital fabrications: architectural and material techniques. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Spiller, N. (2009). Digital architecture now: a global survey of emerging talent. New York, NY: Thames & Hudson. Kolarevic, B. (2003). Architecture in the digital age: design and manufacturing. New York, NY: Spon Press. Hall, E. T. (1966). The hidden dimension ([1st ed.). Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. Johnson, Steven. Emergence: the connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software. New York: Scribner, 2001. Scott, Jill. Artists-in-labs: processes of inquiry. Z rich: HGK; 2006. Sakamoto, Tomoko, and Albert Ferr . From control to design: parametric/algorithmic architecture. Barcelona: Actar-D, 2008. Reas, Casey, Chandler McWilliams, and Jeroen Barendse. Form+code in design, art, and architecture. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010. Woodbury, Robert. Elements of parametric design. London: Routledge, 2010. Print. Oxman, Rivka. The new structuralism: design, engineering and architectural technologies. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley; 2010. Print. Hamilton, Kirk, and Watkins Watkins. Evidence-Based Design for Multiple Building Types. Hoboken,NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2009.

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