In a recent article, Geoff Dyer from Placemakers advocates learning from the success of shopping malls when designing urban retail centres. Although some argue traditional enclosed malls are becoming obsolete, they still offer many useful lessons. Shopping centre managers have spent decades analyzing the movement and behaviour of visitors. These findings transcend built form and can be applied to many different urban environments.
Shopping Mall Design Lessons:
- You need a critical mass of retail
- Anchors are critical
- Create a clear shopping stroll
- Multiple store entries are possible
- The parking walk-around
- Create a Center
- Group Food and Entertainment Together
- Terminated Views
- Get Beyond the Lifestyle Center
- Use the B-Grid to Plan for Converting your Car Side
- Use Angled Parking and a Linear Park
- Add Residents
Geoff critiques the "lifestyle" centre for being isolated and having low walkability. I tend to agree - despite their aesthetics, most lifestyle centres are hardly more urban than your typical enclosed mall. He presents an interesting alternative that can be created by integrating the lifestyle centre directly into an adjacent and dense urban environment.
Image Source: Geoff Dyer, Lessons from the mall and beyond, Better! Cities & Towns
I highly recommend reading the full article which can be found at Better! Cities & Towns.
For decades, planners, urban designers, and policy makers have advocated for street-facing ground floor retail space as a means of animating streets and public spaces. Retail was in many ways the optimal use for achieving this activation due to its foot traffic generation and visual diversity created by storefront designs, lighting, and window transparency. Many […]
Since the release of PokémonGo, there has been an influx of coverage in what many local business and retail centres are doing to capitalize on this increasingly popular game developed by Niantic and The Pokémon Company. The premise behind this game is to mimic the story and concept of the Pokémon franchise which is aptly […]
In the context of vertical shopping environments, a rule of thumb that is sometimes applied is that sales performance drops off by 50% for every floor above ground level. By the time you get to the third storey, you can expect only a fraction of the sales turnover. As a result the space is often not viable. When working […]
To meet the evolving needs of workers and visitors in the core of Cape Town, a new food concept has been pioneered under the “Food Lover’s Market” label. The modern eatery concept brings together the best of an urban grocery store and food court within one beautifully designed facility. Importantly, centralized point-of-sale tills allow visitors […]
