OUTHOUSE design - Gold Award & Landscape design of the year, commercial design
Commercial - Educational/Institutional/Play Space Design
Design Brief:
The client was a large, high reputation, Australian Shopping Precinct Operator who every year has thousands of families and hordes of young folk descend on their flagship Sydney site, to visit Santa and experience a traditional Christmas Grotto of plastic silver trees, reindeer, and glitter.
The client brief was far from simple- we want you to reinvent Christmas!
They were looking to attract new visitors and create viral interest with a unique proposition. Santa’s Grotto had to be a big drawcard to ensure these visitors came, loved it and then spent their money within the precinct.
The brief provided the opportunity to re connect our younger generation with nature as well as unifying and reigniting the memories many Australians have during December- the end of year seasonal (Christmas) family holiday.
To help realise the designer’s vision, the Centre Marketing team were engaged to create a video of Santa exploring holiday locations for real, to reach mass audiences via social media and show that this truly was Santa’s garden and he wanted children to experience the beauty of green spaces for themselves.
The pitch to the client was to create an Australian retail first, to take this 859m2 tiled void, and repurpose it as a visual stage to promote the sense of family, and of joy, through a reconnection with nature. Also built into the design was the opportunity to give back, to raise awareness and funds for three incredibly important charities.
Judges’ Comments:
A wonderful, imaginative and quirky response to the brief and loads of fun for children visiting Santa. An exciting design with an unusual amount of textural and aesthetic diversity in the planting palette for a temporary suburban commercial installation like this.
How the design is seen from different angles has been considered with the larger canopy plants creating a sense of mystery from many angles.
Location: Macquarie Centre, Sydney
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