Adaptive Shop Facades

If all our building’s internal walls, signage as well as dynamic displays where flat panel displays what would happen?

I was walking through a mall a few days ago and realised that pretty much all that I could see around me could be displayed on flat panels like those in Minority Report. There are many consequences of this, (including the paint industry taking a bit of a battering), but in this post I would like to highlight one.

When our local mall’s interior surfaces are covered with a covering of seamless flat panel displays, the addition of a camera and thermometer recording outside a store will enable shop owners to adapt their decor to attract clients!

Shop owners would like to preserve the visual unity of their brand, but at the same time could:

  1. adapt the perceived ‘coolness’ or ‘warmth’ of their shopping environment to the outside temperature.
  2. adapt the colour saturation of their store to it a sense of continuity with the outside environment.
  3. adapt the brightness of the store to minimise eye dilation adaptation for shoppers
  4. adapt the color palette used by their store in response to the colour palettes used by surrounding stores.

From the perspective of shop owners this capacity is no doubt appealing, at the same time, though I will not be able to walk through
malls like that without feeling manipulated! I am not the only one thinking about the implications of this technology. The Interactive Architecture Organisation is a good place to visit to explore this theme more.