Warm Up 2.- Observation: The Mall Experience

In this opportunity, our group went to the Mall Plaza Vespucio, near the University, to walk, sit and most important watch what was going on in that place. Our goal was to identify some key facts that make people go to Mall Plaza instead of other small shoppings to buy almost everything... At first it was obvious, then very confusing, but at the end we think we understood it.

So once there, we start seeing lots of people walking, just sitting, or eating ice cream, all them looking at the showcases or carrying bags with any kind of products. Based on the AEIOU method, we can put in the categories of activities the ones just named in addition to sitting on benches or in restaurants for working or just doing nothing. 

I think she's posing...

Now, and refering to the environments, I think that the conept of Mall Plaza is to offer us a lot of combined environments in just una big box. The corridor, different kind of stores, fast food places, restaurants and terraces are basically the type of environments that Mall Plaza combines in one hit,  which could be one natural reason of why people go there instead of shopping in small stores. As we just read in the Basic Needs lecture, people tend to satisfy their basical needs, where we find the need of socializing. People can also eat in these Malls, and we also read that evoiding the hunger sensation is related to another basic and physiological need to be satisfied. There we have two big and easy-to-catch needs and reasons why people keep going to the Mall Plaza.

Sitting doing nothing.

Lot of people...

The interactions observed in Mall Plaza were between parents, grandparents, and children. Between people and products, food, benches and tables. The variety of things and kind of people related to the context we noticed in the mall is in some way similar to the Araucano Park context observed in warm up 1. I suppose that is really the kind of effect that Mall Plaza wants to transmit, but they must know there is one big failure in the environment proposal: There is a big lack of green areas in those big boxes. Now all of the things and kind of persons I've described are the objects and users involved in the AEIOU method, which brings back the thought about the similarity  between the Mall Plaza and a real plaza. 

"Green Areas"

The concept is about being in family.

The working concept is present here and in the real square.

So as a concluding remark of this particular experience, I can say that the meaning that Mall Plaza management wants to give to their "Plazas" is really a similarity to the real squares, like the Araucano Park. In order to that, is the need of satisfying the physiological and basic needs the one that, based in our observations, make people going to the Mall Plaza and develop their lives there, instead of going to a small store with the only purpose (or possibility) of buy something.