OASIS: A Collaborative Virtual Reality Design Exhibition Exploring the Post-capitalist Mall

Abstract

Since time immemorial, shopping malls have served as potential havens for establishing symbiotic relationships between often multiple individual communities and their corresponding consumers, all under a single roof. These installments with ground-breaking architecture coupled with a multitude of amenities have inconspicuously managed to generate an ambience and long served as a beacon for these local communities. Today, as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a commercial standstill, the economics of malls continue to collapse. This article details the creation of OASIS, a collaborative virtual reality project designed for mental rehabilitation, which examines the themes of destruction, growth, sustainability, and mindfulness using the metaphor of a desolated shopping mall. Ten individual virtual spaces within OASIS were developed to encourage participants’ engagement in a virtual environment and to alleviate the impact of social isolation during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This collaborative project developed at the University of Illinois Chicago involved a team of ten designers from Industrial Design and Graphic Design programs in the integrated virtual creative production. OASIS was developed in a remote collaboration using the Unity game engine and other collaboration tools enabling virtual teamwork. In this article, OASIS is situated within a discussion of how virtual design collaboration can help mitigate issues related to isolation during the coronavirus pandemic. Qualitative feedback from designers and audiences confirmed the effectiveness of virtual reality as a tool on individual and collective creative experience. Exhibited in an online gallery, OASIS explores how design methodologies and VR technology can enhance the graphic design curriculum.