The Don Mills Shopping Centre in Toronto has evolved over the past fifty years from a strip centre, to an enclosed mall, and finally to an outdoor lifestyle centre. I spent a few hours at the Toronto Archives digging through historic aerial images to illustrate how the shopping centre has changed. For a brief history and some interesting photos, check out: Back in the day: Don Mills & Lawrence
[portfolio_slideshow size=large exclude="2577"]*Hold your mouse over the thumbnail to show the year the photo was taken.
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 […]
