Shanghai Joy City Kid’s World | ARIZON

About the project

The Kid’s World on the sixth floor of the South building in Shanghai Joy City is the spatial extension of this love-themed shopping mall. This area of entertainment and retailing is delicately designed for kids aging 3 to 10, which provides enriching, interesting and diversified experiences. It encourages the kids to indulge in their everlasting innocent imagination, and to follow their instincts, to explore the nature in their own way.

How to integrate the three-layer staggered structure of different heights on this floor is a challenge for the architect. Derived from the concept of Dandelion Hill, the whole space grows and flows naturally with the rhythm of the “contour lines”. Splendid colors shift between entertainment zone and retailing stores, where the communication between families takes place and kids are growing up. Through creating an interactive space, the design enlightens and inspires the kids, while encouraging their parents to come along with their exploration.

The uniqueness of the project

The architect is inspired by Dandelion Hill, imagining the form of hills when adopting the rhythm of “contouring lines” in an undulating geography. In this space of 4200 square meters, the retailing stores and public entertainment areas are merged into the circular moving stream of visitors.

The main scene is in the lift hall, the dandelion stems breaking through the soil and spreading. The “singing” stem art installation encourages the  kids to hear the nature simply with ear, paying close attention. As kids are opening eyes, enjoyable Flower Bud Book House and splendorous “Rainbow Forest” come to sight. The kids climb through the playful sliders with their body fully touching and feeling the movement, exploring tree houses in central plaza. In the end, they reach the shining “Fairy Masquerade”.

Like a palette being knocked over, the project brushes up to 200 colors in areas with different themes. Art installations and stores bump into and merge with each other, bringing livelihood and amusing expectations to the space.

The entire space is metaphorical for the process of life from budding, growing to maturity, encouraging the creative caprices and ideas to grow in kids, and leading them to explore the magic of nature. It is also an experimental innovation to insert recreational activities in retailing spaces.

Project name: Shanghai Joy City Kid’s World

Location: Shanghai. China

Design Company: ARIZON

Architect: Junwei Shen

Design Area: 4200 ㎡

Completion time: 2018

Photographer: Dirk weiblen

Main material: Aluminum, Iron, Stainless steel, Wood, Diatom mud, Terrazzo (Natural materials)