ARCFOX × UCCA Lab Immersive Driving Experience Camp Space Renovation Design

Project Background Commissioned by UCCA Lab, PILLS recently completed the temporary exhibition hall renovation design for ARCFOX Jihu cars. This temporary exhibition hall is designed for the car display of the brand's immersive driving experience club. As a collaboration between ARCFOX and UCCA Lab for the 'Boundless Art Space' project, this temporary exhibition hall will be repeatedly built and used in seven cities along with brand promotion activities. PILLS has renovated, designed, and constructed the tent, purchased by the brand, within a total of about two weeks. Taking into account various design limitations and possibilities, PILLS effectively responded to this design task. We face multiple challenges in this design task. Firstly, the time left for the design is extremely short, no more than one week. Secondly, the brand shelter is not in place and cannot be measured and verified. Thirdly, The time left for construction is extremely short, which requires simple and easy processing and installation. Fourthly, the lifting force of the tent is limited, which requires lightweight and reliable exhibition construction. Moreover, the temporary exhibition hall will be repeatedly built and used in seven cities, which requires exhibition materials to be easily transported, dismantled, and installed multiple times. Lastly, due to the limited project funding, our materials must be affordable. Design Concept Taking into account the above factors and ARCFOX's positioning for this brand promotion, we chose to create a negatively shaped “polar snow mountain” within the existing tent. After multiple rounds of design thinking on the “valley-ridge” form of the snow mountain, we divided the negative space between it and the tent in a circular shape according to the structural line, resulting in layers of nested surfaces arranged according to the structural line. They are used to reflect the mountain's “body” . The seven circular sections together form a virtual mountain space, where the ARCFOX Jihu cars are displayed. Design Development After the design is determined, key considerations become the possible problems and material selections that may arise during the short construction time. The seven-layer decorative unfolding diagram is easy to handle and modify, and also easy to hang. The decorative design conforms to the structural member modulus, easy to locate. During the material selection process, we comprehensively evaluated various materials such as perforated metal mesh, cloth, and acrylic. We decided to use DuPont paper as the main material since this material can form texture folds resembling snow mountains after kneading. It is lightweight and affordable, featuring strong stability, high toughness, and convenience for rapid processing, transportation, and installation. The paper material after kneading has extremely high fault tolerance, and problems during rapid installation can also be visually weakened. Although DuPont paper has various advantages that are suitable for this project, it also has certain problems, such as deformation of size after kneading, out of shape, and wide folded edges due to the light weight of the paper. Therefore, in node design, we sewed steel pipes in two layers of paper at each structural inflection point corresponding to the plane and used the weight of the steel pipes to maintain perpendicularity at the corners. As a result, the surface design ensures a large styling trend while also keeping a subtle texture. At the same time, the ground mirrored the negative shape of the “polar snow mountain”, completely immersing the audience. The design of the car platform and check-in platform also applied design elements related to ice and snow. Lighting Research Whether the lighting can match the materials and forms is also the key to the project's success or failure. We applied research models and computer simulations to determine the optimal lighting scheme and appropriate illuminance for people's senses. In the design, we set the light source at the “mountain top” as a luminous light box, providing the main light source with the highest brightness. A luminous light strip and cover plate were installed inside the suspension rod to create a halo effect on the illuminated surface. This creates a realistic and imaginative atmosphere. Project Summary In summary, although this design is a small-scale and low-cost temporary building renovation, the challenges we face are no less than conventional designs. We respond to various constraints and uncontrollable factors with design thinking and strategies within an extremely limited time, seeking the optimal intersection between design effectiveness and feasibility, maximizing the satisfaction of ARCFOX's brand advocacy and the diverse cultural as well as artistic practices continuously explored by UCCA Lab.

Project Information Project Type: Exhibition Design Commission: UCCA Lab Brand: ARCFOX Exhibition Period: July 9 - October 3, 2021 Exhibition Venue: Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen Design by: PILLS Lead Designer: Zigeng Wang Commercial Director: Yixuan Wu (UCCA Lab) Project Manager: Yanru Wu (UCCA Lab) Design Team: Xiaohuan Zhang, Manying Wang, Sihan Zhao, Yuzhu Wang, Yang Lu Interior Design Consultant: Xunjun Xu Lighting Consultant: Lei Pang Construction Team: Beijing Shen Yun Zhi Guang Culture Communication Co. Design time: July 2021