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Amazon warehouses are wreaking havoc in California’s Inland Empire

2021-11-22T19:18:00-05:00

In California’s Inland Empire, dozens of mega-warehouses for Amazon, UPS and other companies are choking the cities with traffic and air pollution. Some argue that the jobs warehouses provide aren’t worth the cost, while others say it’s online shopping that’s the real problem.

Despite the boiler-plate promise of adding jobs to the community, warehouse-laden tracts have been dumping an increasing amount of pollutants into the atmosphere in the form of increased truck and air cargo traffic and propelled in part by a sharp rise in online shopping. Amazon opened its first fulfillment center in San Bernadino in 2012. Today, the company operates more than 30 in the area alone.

Southern California's Inland Empire is one of the most polluted regions in America. One study from the University of California, Riverside revealed an 11% increase in Covid-19 deaths related to the number of particulates in the air. Around 85% of the population that lives within half a mile from a warehouse identify as people of color.

“We’re dealing with smoggy summers that are getting worse and worse,” one Riverside resident told The Guardian in April. “We’re sick of getting alerts that say avoid being outside because of dirty air. This is not normal.”

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The shopping mall typology is being transformed

2020-07-29T13:51:00-04:00

The slow and steady death of the shopping mall has been sped up since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now several months into the public health and economic crisis the pandemic has set off, mall owners and operators are developing specific visions for the post-mall future of American commercial architecture.

A recent report from the National Retail Federation highlights that the steady erosion of anchor tenants, foot traffic, and consumer interest in malls has been supercharged by the economic shutdown put into effect to stem the spread of the virus. Malls, of course, depend on foot traffic and crowds to thrive, and so have been fundamentally challenged by social distancing and shut down measures.

As a result, the NRF report explains, mall operators are pivoting away from shopping and toward a variety of adaptive reuse approaches that include converting old department stores into co-working spaces, adding hybrid fulfillment center uses offering "digital concierges, mobile a...

Shopping just isn't what it used to be

2019-08-08T18:00:00-04:00

During the 1970s and ’80s, the sophisticated shopping experience was not branded in efficiency or self-denial or schemes devised in investment banks. Dean & DeLuca was itself a work of art. This was also true of Barneys, another institution born of the ethos that shopping was an act of self-actualization. Now both institutions find themselves in financial free-fall.

Ginia Bellafante of The New York Times pens a sombre remembrance for the gold old days of shopping, when "demand was not so obviously engineered," and purchasing life's necessities constituted a social act.

The missive is inspired by the recent financial collapse of high-end grocer Dean & DeLuca and the fashion brand Barneys, two design-forward, trail-blazing New York City institutions that have fallen pray to contemporary economic pressures. The changing nature of shopping and the effects of those shifts on so-called "shopping architecture" are a significant and important element of contemporary life.

Bellafante laments, for example, "Despite these abiding economic truths, it is also true that the city that produced a retail culture focused on discovery and experimentation has become a place with Amazon boxes on the stoop of every brownstone," adding, "We have allowed our habits to become so effectively manipulated toward convenience that is hard to imagine appreciating idiosyncr...

Amazon's new pop-up strategy draws attention to the changing retail environment

2019-03-08T15:28:00-05:00

Amazon, the giant online retailer, is closing all 87 of its U.S. pop-up kiosks, which let customers try and buy gadgets such as smart speakers and tablets in malls, Kohl's department stores, and Whole Foods groceries. It's the latest change in Amazon's bricks-and-mortar retail strategy, which includes bookstores, grocery stores, and cashier-less stores.

Amazon has been a frequent headliner in the news as they prepare for headquarter expansions and retail store changes. However, despite its popularity and rapid consumer fulfillment process, Amazon has decided to discontinue its pop-up kiosk program. A spokesperson from Amazon shared that the decision was based on "creating thoughtful decisions on how to better serve their customers." In place of the pop-up kiosks, the company has expressed its focus on expanding Amazon Books and Amazon 4-star stores. This transition in retail strategy will allow Amazon to focus on a broader selection of products while putting more attention towards customer experience.

Amazon 4-star in New York's SoHo; Image © AFP

Amazon opened its first bookstore in Seattle’s University Village in 2015; Photo courtesy of GeekWire - Image © Taylor Soper)

Amazon 4-star stores appeared on the scene in 2018 at its first retail location in New York. Promotions for the store highlighted curated products across various cate...

Retail stores are changing. Brands call for architects to aid them during the retail revolution

2019-03-05T10:18:00-05:00

With the rise of e-commerce titans and online shopping services like Amazon, Walmart, and eBay brands have entered a precarious position in terms of satisfying consumer demand while maintaining interest within retail stores. With the rise of online availability, the need for items can be accomplished at the push of a button. However, some brands are trying to find ways to make retail stores relevant and interesting in today's consumer market. Have retail stores lost their touch? Alternatively, have they merely lost their vision of what the brand can look like offline. Online shopping is great, but when it comes to user experience, certain brands are taking matters into their own hands.

Image courtesy of March Blinch/Reuters

Apple and Nike have already made drastic attempts at focusing their attention and shifting their flagship stores into immersive spaces that offer a grander sense of connectivity with the product. User experience and interactive design go beyond flashing lights an...

What is a physical bookstore without that many books?

2016-03-09T13:45:00-05:00

Called Amazon Books, the store will be located at Westfield UTC mall near UC San Diego...The store will presumably resemble the Seattle location, which sells a limited selection of Amazon's best-reviewed books. That venue also doubles as a showroom for the e-commerce brand's expanding hardware lineup, which includes its Kindle, Fire TV, Fire tablets and Echo. The Echo, the company's latest gadget, is an in-home personal assistant powered by artificial intelligence.

Although small, independently-owned bookstores have been thriving lately, national chains—such as Borders Books, which shuttered its doors in 2011—have not adapted as well to Amazon's disruptive online model of cheap, on-demand books. Now the online retailer is reversing its brick-and-mortar-be-damned strategy once again by opening another physical bookstore in San Diego (its first, in Seattle, opened in 2015). The faceless behemoth can delight in the realities of face-to-face retail while likely primarily pushing its non-book, book-reading devices.

Online shop, Das Programm, launches offering vintage, hard-to-find, Dieter Rams products

2013-08-06T13:19:00-04:00

As incorrigible collectors we are all too aware of the gap between the desirability and availability of Dieter Rams' work. das programm was conceived to correct this. We only sell Dieter Rams designs for Braun and Vitsœ, and Braun products issued between 1955 and 1995, the period of Rams’ office at Braun, for the greater part as Director of the Design Department.