This design proposal envisions a mid-rise retail tower occupied by emerging local fashion retailers. Situated at the gateway to Little India, this tower shall weave together the human flow in existing malls along Selegie Road and designers from art colleges along Short Street to embed itself as a nexus for sustainable fashion.
Given the retail sector’s longstanding reliance on visual branding as a communicative medium, be it through architectural means such as atriums since the 19th century or through surrogates such as billboards, it is ironic that retail outlets remain largely insular and isolated from the urban environment. This presents a misopportunity, especially for growth-seeking micro-retailers reliant on low-capital visual branding.
It thus raises the design prospect of establishing a formal system based on the primacy of the programme, where the programme can be allocated based on visual connectivity to the surrounding urban context which informs the facade design too.
