Future-Proofing with Design

COVID-19 is the most uproarious, most miserable, and the most defining epoch of our lifetime. Especially when it comes to humans’ tenacity to interact in space is almost the daily routine and for the same reason after this situation passes; we will be defining the new normal. This distress caused has roared up some challenges but has opened another window for opportunities. Will these changes continue after the lockdown is lifted? What will be the new normal?

In the fourth episode of Avantika Designeering Series Podcast, I talked with Manukrishna Nair who leads at Fitch as their Director of Development. He takes us through his journey where he has shaped many places into meaningful spaces, creating user-centric spatial experiences that resonate with different perspectives and bring people together as a community and also on how the future of space design looks like.

Rohit Lalwani: Manu one question that has been boggling all of us for the last 50 odd days, the post COVID world is going to look wild. How do you think spaces will look like once we all go in the world after this?

Manukrishna Nair: Yeah. It’s a good question. Because a lot of people are already asking us as well. We’ve started having conversations. Recently a client asked how we can create a virtual experience. It is an exciting thought because we are always creating a lot of physical experiences and adding virtual as a part of it. But if we were to look at a purely virtual experience for a brand, what would it be like? So yes, it’s part of a conversation. Now brands are getting interested. We are looking at can it be more immersive and enhance storytelling, or does is it just a tool. Because that’s typically when you look at two ways of the virtual experience; but beyond just the space, it is also about the experience today.

We are chatting with another fitness client of ours. Post everything coming back when the gym’s get back to normal, and people want to have limited contact, what can become the points of enhancing the experience there? There is going to be a play, but I think technology will play a much more significant role in making these physical spaces more immersive in the overall experience.

Rohit Lalwani: Space and exhibitions are seen as interaction and blend between product and graphic design. How do you define space design?

Manukrishna Nair: Space is about, or space design is really about what brings alive an experience. To cite your example that you just mentioned, the colour store does not sell a single can of paint. It is not a store that generates revenue through selling paint. It is a store that helps a brand, almost own the category of colour. When they approached us, it was all about not just selling under the bucket of paint, but about, can we own the category? And when you come into the store, you play with colour, and you play with how your Mera Wala pink looks with a warm light versus a cool light, and you play with the colour.

Whether it’s adults or the kids or mainly the architects who come in there, they are talking about colour stories and how they can enhance any space using colour. It’s really about that experience. Bringing alive an experience is what space design does.

Rohit Lalwani: Interesting. Fitch also developed data points to codify different types of experiences. And you have identified 12 Distinct experience themes. Can you share a little more on that?

Manukrishna Nair: Experience themes is the proprietary tool that we use. And we do use data So we are part of WPP. We have access to brand Z data which is essentially what customers expect out of brands. This is our 650,000 customers, and we’ve mapped it over 23,000 brands in more than 31 countries.

And what we look at is what our customers are expecting from categories. What are customers expecting from brands and using the data we have shared these 12 themes, based on different customer needs, to ultimately when you think of designing an experience, it is what we really firmly believe is about identifying what those four basic needs of the customer are. Whether it’s the need for progress, the need for independence, the need for belonging or the need for comfort. And by understanding these needs, we have taken these 12 experience themes. One example could be a campfire. When we talk of campfires, It’s a place of belonging where you have people being welcomed, and people come together.

So, within a space, if you want to create a community. We use the campfire experience theme as the central idea around how the journey of the customer would be like. And for us, these 12 themes are not saying that one brand has to have just one theme. It is a combination of two or three themes that make it a lot richer.

There could be a theme of the lab, which is really about where experiments take place. I want to discover something new. A brand into technology and creating innovations is really like a lab. Can I bring that lab alive in this space?

Fitch recently even designed the Microsoft headquarters in Singapore, and it’s about a lakh and twenty thousand square feet. And over there, our philosophy was how do you make the office almost like your brand’s flagship, we looked at the office space, like a brand’s flagship. And then how do these experience themes work from the journey of, be it the employees, be it the visitors or business associates coming into the Microsoft office.

Rohit Lalwani: Interesting. And do you see more and more technology in space soon? Do you believe our interaction with physical spaces reduce an introduction of augmented reality, virtual reality or other sophisticated technologies that are going to take over?

Manukrishna Nair: I feel that these solutions and technologies won’t be an isolated solution.

They will help enhance physical spaces. So. I wouldn’t say physical spaces are going to go down. Let’s look at an example of us sitting in lockdown for almost two months. Are we waiting to go out? Yes, we are. How much are you going to be sitting in the same space?

But at the same time technology will play a significant role in enhancing that physical space. the way physical spaces will be designed will be very different, and we interact will with them very differently. I won’t say they will get reduced, but they will get enhanced through technology.

Rohit Lalwani: And from moving to the physical spaces and technology. I shared a term with you Designeering that we coined at Avantika, and it’s been interesting to see how this term interplays in every field. What do you think about this concept of Designeering, where both design and engineering come together, and how does it impact your workspace or your life?

Manukrishna Nair: For me, the term, my take away from the term is the engineering part is the scientific approach. The science behind the madness of sorts. I have always been a believer that for any field of design to work. It’s the process that goes under it, the processes that go behind it. For me, Designeering is bringing the scientific approach to unlocking potential. And as cliché, as it sounds, is the method to the madness.

Today the experiences are being measured as the level of comfort in everyone’s lives. With “experience” taking center stage in all the interplays of the processes that organizations follow, we should be expecting solutions that will sweep us off our feet and give a different outlook towards our life. The future of Spatial Design is on the same path; to know more about the same tune into our episode with Manukrishna Nair on our podcast show, live on all the major channels. Details are available on the profile.