RMIT | No Fixed Address' photostream

The ways in which activities of retail exchange take place within the public realm are changing. In particular, the realm of renegade markets and cash economies - the car, the park, the street, the lane-way, the foot-path and the café are now becoming socially legitimate places for retail display and transaction – challenging the current ‘big-box’ retail paradigm.

How might these changes alter the idea of the retail environment as a situated, singular or enclosed space? Could ‘going shopping’ now be a statement that is divorced from the notion of a fixed place of shopping and only concerned with “acts” of selling and buying? How would this impact on the retail experience?

This design studio / specialisation explores these ideas through a range of individual, interdisciplinary and client based projects which asks the student to research, conceive and articulate design propositions that deal with the complexities of designing a temporal retail platform / environment for a socially engaged retail and fashion enterprise that currently exists in Melbourne called the Social Studio.