Archinect - News

SPARK and Arup create a retrofitted mall and education hub in the heart of Singapore's Selegie Arts District

2023-08-02T15:49:00-04:00

International architectural and design consultancy SPARK, alongside ARUP, has brought an eye-catching, youth-focused mall and education hub to the heart of Singapore’s Selegie Arts District. Situated between the adjacent School of the Arts Singapore (SOTA) and several long-standing shopping malls, this vibrant refurbished space serves as a new beacon for the surrounding area.

Entrance. Image: KhooGuoJie

Called GRiD, the project centered on the purpose of increasing asset value through social interaction, increased accessibility, and the celebration of self and community. The building was deliberately designed to stand out, with its neon-clad façade and supersized graphics. GRiD reimagines the corner that it sits after replacing what the architects described as an “unproductive 4-storey void.”

Atrium view. Image: KhooGuoJie

The new structure has a Tetris-like arrangement of stacked retail and dining volumes and terraces. The voided spaces encourage direct connections to the basement le...

Canada's traditional shopping centers are turning into mall cities

2023-06-07T14:00:00-04:00

“It’s less about e-commerce than it is about how people want to live and what they want to experience [...] People want to connect, they want to be social, so we’re trying to give them more reasons and more opportunities to do that.”

The movement is not without its detractors, however, as planning experts like the University of British Columbia’s Dr. Penelope Gurstein balance the media’s mostly effusive coverage for such projects with criticism that they are marketed towards affluent retirees and wealthy overseas buyers whose apartments are vacant much of the year.

The government has attempted to mitigate this via a new ban on foreign property ownership. Still, most feel the industry is well-positioned to adapt, as evidenced by the 420 units of below-market-rate units that were included in the 28-acre Henriquez Partners master-planned Oakridge Park development in Vancouver.

“Ten years ago, I was expanding malls, 20 years ago I was building malls, five years ago we were talking about demolishing malls,” one developer tells the Globe and Mail. “You can’t predict the future.”

The abandoned mall featured in hit show, The Last of Us, will undergo a redevelopment led by Toronto-based practice DIALOG

2023-03-16T18:53:00-04:00

HBO’s The Last of Us has taken the TV world by storm, with its season finale recently airing last Sunday. The show has brought to life the immensely popular and acclaimed video game series, placing viewers into a dire post-apocalyptic, zombie-ridden world.

Following the journey of characters Joel, played by Pedro Pascal, and Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey, we see them undertake a cross-country trip where they encounter a range of landscapes and urban locations.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Last of Us HBO - Status (@hbosthelastofus)

One of the most memorable is seen in the show’s seventh episode, “Left Behind,” set primarily in an actual vacant shopping mall. This location is Calgary’s Northland Village Mall, which has been partially closed since 2021 as it undergoes a redevelopment plan led by Toronto-based practice DIALOG.

Rendered in courtesy of DIALOG.

The firm has recently shared renderings of the reimagined mall, depicting an open-air, mixe...

Shopping malls are being reimagined as health care centers across the country

2022-04-14T15:11:00-04:00

The hulking Hickory Hollow Mall — a full 1.1 million square feet of retail space in southeast Nashville — was once the largest shopping center in Tennessee. But like dozens of malls, it’s been in a downward death spiral for more than a decade — despite a scrappy revival effort. Now, the mammoth complex surrounded by acres of parking is on track to join the ranks of malls making a transition into medicine.

According to a national database kept by Georgia Tech urban design professor Ellen Dunham-Jones, a total of 32 enclosed malls have shifted to housing health care services, with nearly a third established at the start of the pandemic. Covid lockdowns had a tremendous impact on brick-and-mortar retailers who were already struggling to stay afloat. As noted by Marketplace.org, the rise of telemedicine and push to outpatient procedures will make malls increasingly attractive sites for healthcare services.

In addition, some disused malls are located in diverse neighborhoods that are in need of increased access to healthcare. Malls can also offer more convenient access compared to traditional hospitals as they’re equipped with large amounts of parking spots and are near major highways and interstates.

Construction Update: AIM has completed its transformation of Shanghai's Kailong Jiajie Plaza

2021-08-30T14:41:00-04:00

A startling transformation of a former Shanghai shopping mall expected to pump new life into a centuries-old district that has played a seminal role in the history and development of the city is ready to be unveiled thanks to the work of one local firm.

AIM Architecture has completed work on its transformed Kailong Jiajie Plaza in Shanghai’s storied Hongkou district into a sustainable vision of vertical public space, partly inspired by the terraced mountain landscapes of rural China. The revamp will activate the disused structure as it refreshes the area with greenery and brightness benefitting both city and community as the building itself transitions into the 21st century.

Image courtesy Dirk Weiblen/AIM Architecture

Per the architect: “With this project, we look at regeneration with fresh eyes. We open up the building, not only on the façade but also at its heart, the interior courtyard. We enhance the district’s vibrancy, create a stronger connection to the community, and discov...

Amazon is buying up dead malls–adaptive reuse, or just eating its prey?

2021-04-12T14:30:00-04:00

Amazon continues to makes headlines with its labor issues, workers' rights, and headquarters expansion. However, that hasn't stopped the multi-billion-dollar company from growing, for better or for worse. A recent news report from NBC News shared Amazon's moves towards purchasing empty shopping malls into new fulfillment centers. According to Leticia Miranda, "Malls that buckled due to e-commerce or suffered during the pandemic are being given new life by the very entity that precipitated their decline — Amazon."

Macy’s, 2018. Image © Jesse Rieser

From 2016 thru 2019, Amazon's abandoned mall transformations have resulted in 25 converted shopping malls to fulfillment centers. As malls and big box stores continue to experience the ongoing "retail apocalypse," mall owners needed to pivot and adapt. In July 2020, Archinect briefly dove into mall typology and the "the post-mall future of American commercial architecture." COVID-19 may have been the final nail in the coffin for most strugg...

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...

Don't believe the hype: Brick-and-mortar retail is here to stay

2019-09-24T19:30:00-04:00

The hypothetical Retail Apocalypse should be supported by a decline in the total retail establishments, but that's not the case. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported 1,044,509 establishments for 2018, for a net gain of 2,413 establishments over 2017 (1,042,096). The 2018 figure also represents a net gain of more than 20,800 establishments since a retail trough in 2011, a low point resulting from the Great Recession.

Sharon Woods, CEO of real estate consultant group LandUseUSA, writes in Public Square, a journal produced by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) presents an opposing, data-driven view of the future of America's retail landscape.

Woods writes, "The future for brick-and-mortar retail is far less bleak than the scene painted by mainstream media. Although e-commerce is taking a larger share of the pie, brick-n-mortar and physical store sales are also continuing to grow. Most of the chain store closures are limited to certain segments of retail—particularly department stores anchors and apparel tenants of sprawling regional malls and strip centers."

As the chart above notes, much of the retail growth is taking place in chain restaurants, CVS HealthHUB stores, and dollar stores like Dollar Tree and Dollar General.

New Jersey's long-delayed American Dream mega-mall set to open

2019-08-22T19:45:00-04:00

The megamall, built by Canadian developer Triple Five, will include a Nickelodeon Universe theme park, DreamWorks water park, professional-size skating rink, indoor ski slopes and, of course, shopping. Participating retailers include Saks Fifth Avenue, Tiffany & Co., H&M , Zara and Uniqlo. Some stores won’t be open until next year. The mall is expected to bring 17,000 jobs in total to the area, an American Dream spokesman said.

The project was first proposed in 2003, fittingly, under the name "Xanadu," according to The Wall Street Journal.

According to an American Dream spokesperson, the mall is expected to bring 17,000 jobs to New Jersey's Meadowlands area.

Are college campuses becoming the new malls of the 21st century?

2019-08-07T09:07:00-04:00

Chain retailers have their eyes on a new type of mall — your university. While higher education may once have been associated with the ivory tower — a secluded place of rigorous study — now companies like Target, Trader Joe’s, Urban Outfitters, and Publix are opening stores on or near college campuses, chasing students who are setting up shopping habits that could last a lifetime.

In an insightful Buzzfeed News article, Leticia Miranda explains why a large number of college campuses are becoming the new rulers of chain retailers. Although college is typically a time for young adults to pursue a higher level of academia, another type of "skill" may be unraveling, the need to shop. Institutions, specifically in the U.S., are keeping tabs on this trend and are learning to capitalize on transforming their campuses and surrounding areas into retail hubs.

Buzzfeed spoke with the executive vice president of the retail brokerage firm Metro Commercial Kathy Sawin. According to Sawin, "It gives the colleges a competitive edge when they have a vibrant retail strip or area around their campus." Several retail chains are targeting this demographic and stocking their stores with college essentials that will keep each new incoming class satisfied.

Image © Target | corporate.target.com

Tim Eklund VP of Target's small-format stores told Buzzfeed, "We're offering an experience...

In Jakarta residents are living in a "suburb in the sky"

2019-08-06T10:07:00-04:00

It is a surreal urban bubble, where normal life unfolds at an abnormal altitude. To access ground level, residents drive their cars down a ramp. A tall metal fence runs around the perimeter to make sure no one falls or drives off. Peer beyond the fence and you can spot the city’s landmarks below.

In Jakarta, Indonesia exists a suburb, unlike any other. Cosmo Park is unique because it can be found ten stories above ground on top of a shopping mall. At ground level, Jakarta is a city that succumbs to many issues. Many cities around the world suffer from their fair share of obstacles. However, Jakarta has experienced a series of challenges.

The Indonesian capital has had experienced a rapid increase in urban growth resulting from flooding and other natural disasters. Congestion, gridlocked traffic, and a breakdown in the city's ecology are other factors that would beg to question, perhaps the idea of Cosmo Park is a viable option for alternative urban developments?

Image © The Jakarta Post | foto.tempo

In a recent post from The Guardian, the development of Cosmo Park was relatively unknown and out of the public eye for many years. However, thanks to a recent Twitter post from @shahrirbahar1, the photo caught the attention of many. Accumulating nearly 27,000 retweets many began...

How the death of suburban malls aided the filming of the third season of Stranger Things

2019-07-12T13:29:00-04:00

Fans of Netflix's science fiction horror series Stranger Things were recently treated to season 3, which almost entirely takes place within a suburban mall. Filled with neon, fake marble and geometric water features, the postmodern mall design became the ideal setting for the show set in 1985.

Interior of Gwinnett Place Mall. Photographer unknown.

What is first assumed to be an elaborate stage set or impressive CGI is actually a mall in Duluth, Georgia. Originally built in 1984, the Gwinnett Place Mall is one of many malls throughout America that faced declining visitorship during the early 2000s which led to the closure of many of its stores several years ago (only a few remain in operation, including Foot Locker, Finish Line, Victoria’s Secret and Macy’s).

This became a perfect opportunity for the producers of Stranger things to rent a large portion of the space for a fraction of the price it might have been even a decade ago, allowing them to invest more into making the mall app...

A democratic presidential candidate is pitching to save "dead malls"

2019-07-09T13:31:00-04:00

Entrepreneur and presidential hopeful Andrew Yang has a new policy proposal that promises to set him apart in the crowded Democratic field. He hopes to address an issue affecting the economic vitality of communities all across the country. Yang wants to save the malls. According to his campaign, some 300 malls will fold over the next 4 years, a number in line with an estimate by Credit Suisse that one-quarter of all malls will close by 2022.

In the U.S., the presidential race has already begun with potential candidates showcasing their intended policies and platforms to the American people. Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has created a growing following due to his stance on universal base income and approaching politics with "human-centered capitalism." In learning this, it is no wonder Yang has turned his efforts towards saving dying malls as a means to revive the economy of local communities.

Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang. Image © Chris Zoeller/Globe-Gazette/AP

Yang's goal is to implement the American Mall Act. According to a recent CityLab piece by Kriston Capps, the plan is to "devote $6 billion to find new purposes for these dying retail complexes." Yang made this announcement on July 4th weekend in a video as a response to Palmetto State voters and their experience of the retail apocalypse. In his video, Yang expresses the reality of mall upkeep and points out, "it's a massive challenge to try t...

How a Venezuelan shopping center became a prison

2019-01-29T14:00:00-05:00

A new interactive documentary from the BBC explores the Venezuelan shopping center that became one of the country's most notorious torture centers for political prisoners. Through interviews from ex-detainees, relatives, lawyers and human rights activists, the BBC aims to bring its mysterious history to light.

Designed by Pedro Neuberger, Dirk Bornhorst, and Jorge Romero Gutiérrez—and topped with one of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes—El Helicoide was intended as the world's first drive-through mall. Conceived at the height of Venezuela's economic growth, the ambitious project promoted a narrative of progress centered around consumerism, car culture, and social mobility.

However, the economic and political upheaval in 1950s Venezuela caused the project to fall apart, halting construction and leaving it empty for many years. Eventually, it was taken over by the government, who used it as a temporary flood shelter before adapting it as the headquarters for Venezuela's intelligenc...

Renzo Piano's new Bay Area mall creates modern public space for the suburbs

2018-12-12T09:20:00-05:00

He designed the Shard in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, but for his latest project, Italian architect Renzo Piano has taken his impressive legacy to the unsuspecting city of San Ramon in order to build a suburban shopping center.

Completed for a reported cost of $300 million, City Center Bishop Ranch is located in a Bay Area suburb, about a 45 minute drive from San Francisco. Retail spaces have begun opening their doors, and one can expect to find mall staples like Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma coexisting alongside Bay Area favorites such as the Slanted Door—the famed San Francisco Vietnamese restaurant—and local brewery Fieldwork Brewing Co.

As the latest champion of a new kind of mall culture, the creators conceived of Bishop Ranch, not just as a luxury shopping complex, but as a downtown area and modern public space for the suburbs. "We're trying to avoid the traditional sort of shopping center model and create a place that feels a little bit more endear...

This video game tests your ability to handle the retail madness of an American mall

2018-02-19T15:17:00-05:00

With the rise of online shopping, we have all been watching the dead mall epidemic for many years now. Addressing those left hanging on in today's world, Bloomberg now brings us the The American Mall Game: A 2018 Retail Challenge. Try your odds at managing a failing mall in this retro 90's computer game.

First you must choose a player—I chose Colton, who made his fortune selling his beanie babies collection at the height of its craze and wants to prove to his parents he's an adult. Next you will choose a strategy of either modernizing, creating an alternative mall, or cutting costs.

The American Mall Game: A 2018 Retail Challenge with an irritated shopper.

Your broker, wearing flashy 90's shades, gives you advice on how to save your dying mall. Navigate through stores like "Victoria's Conspiracy" and "Marcy's" while you get rid of rats, trash, and cyberpunk delinquents.

I was too busy clicking on shoppers to read their irritated comments and failed quickly. See how you fare in thi...

As shopping malls are dying in urban areas, land becomes available again for housing

2017-10-04T13:47:00-04:00

Acres of prime real estate are opening for redevelopment as America’s malls struggle to compete with Amazon and other online giants, offering developers a rare shot to remake swaths of land in the country’s built-out metropolises. In particular, real estate experts say, the demise of retail centers provides one of the best chances to add needed housing [...].

In his article, LA Times reporter Andrew Khouri also points out the drawbacks of these new development opportunities, writing "residents voiced concern that the development will make the area more attractive to those of higher incomes and put upward pressure on rents in the surrounding area, even as the housing supply expands."

"An exuberant bygone optimism:" dead malls become poignant architectural relics

2017-09-12T15:39:00-04:00

“I’m looking for subtle signifiers of an exuberant bygone optimism,” [Photographer Tag Christof] said. “Whether people realize it or not, the things I photograph are the direct result of a system that defines progress only in economic terms.” Christof...has spent the last five years crisscrossing the country in an effort to document architectural sites vanishing from the landscape.

Whether you spent your teenage years moodily occupying the food court or have experienced malls primarily as ruin porn, the architectural significance of these former bustling commercial centers can't be overstated. A kind of high water mark of capitalism, the shuttered and demolished malls profiled in this piece for The Outline represent a country whose narrative was mainly shaped by a robust middle class and a belief in national infallibility, two things that are noticeably weakened in the present era. While nostalgia is usually always the end result of oversimplification, it's hard to argue with the fact that in the last few decades the commercial infrastructure of the United States has undergone a dramatic shift, both physically and symbolically.

The need to reclaim public spaces from white supremacists

2017-08-22T20:03:00-04:00

In this article on the Huffington Post, Lance Hosey writes about the horror of watching white surpremacists marching in the Charlottesville Downtown Mall on August 11th and 12th of this year. The Mall, which was significantly redesigned in the 1970s, serves as a unavoidable visual reminder of the pressing need for architects, designers, and city planners to reclaim public spaces from hate groups. As Hosey explains, "In the 70s, when the late landscape architect Lawrence Halprin led a community-driven design process that closed East Main Street to cars, they had the foresight to lift the brick paving on pedestals and give room to breathe for the newly planted trees’ root system, and four decades later the majestic Willow Oaks are bigger than buildings. Strolling down the Mall is like a walk in the woods. On Friday evenings in summer, 'Charlottesville's living room' teems with life, the most vivid sense of community I have ever known."

After describing the despicable events of the nig...

Death is in the details: photographic survey of a mall about to be torn down

2017-01-12T20:23:00-05:00

Its architecture is painfully lost in its own time and its updates only confuse by neither integrating well into the original structure or standing out as truly contemporary. The pink kiosks, orange tiles, teal chairs and green paneled rooms, the purple plush seating in the JC Penny dressing room, and the bright blue tiered entryways are, along with other decor flourishes, seemingly random, with no coherent pattern.

Declaring that "the dying mall narrative" already peaked a few years ago, Tag Hartman-Simkins decides to photographically zero in on the details of an old mall in Galesburg, Illinois that is about to be torn down and replaced with an updated, outdoor mixed-use space. His careful observations of everything from the floor tile to the overhead music to the way mirrors are arranged in dressing rooms create a nuanced and affecting portrait of long gone times.

Indoor malls are out as LA's brick-and-mortar shopping centers get renovated

2016-12-13T20:25:00-05:00

Sometime in the not too distant future we will look back at traditional malls as an anachronism – something that started with the post World War II move to the suburbs, peaked in 1990, and faded away, according to the billionaire Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso, whose properties include the Grove and the Americana at Brand.

Millions of dollars are being spent on refurbishing and renovating malls in Los Angeles in an attempt to offer online shoppers an incentive to go outdoors. According to this report by KPCC, the big-league mall masterminds, including Grove guru Rick Caruso, are purposefully trying to redesign malls to center around activities like eating and socializing, experiences which are arguably better in person (and which indoor malls frequently sequester to dimly lit food courts). Although many are predicting the outright death of indoor malls, others are simply repurposing them into religious centers, hospitals, and occasionally dwellings in housing-crisis plagued cities.

For more on malls:

Istanbul's storied relationship to shopping malls

2015-11-09T18:51:00-05:00

With their sustainable growth slowing down, things didn't look good at all for the future of Turkey's malls. [...] With interest in city conservation growing, a popular opposition against gentrification projects rising, and a newborn curiosity for the country's Ottoman-era buildings being threatened by construction companies, talking positively about shopping malls came to be considered sacrilegious from 2013 on.

Alicia Eler's ode to Jon Jerde and the mall as "part of the American experience"

2015-02-23T13:49:00-05:00

I love the mall as much as I love the urban walking experience, museums and movie theaters. Today the stripmall is not just a part of my everyday life in Los Angeles [...] it is also a memory from my own suburban adolescence growing up in Illinois. Jon Jerde, the LA architect both celebrated and loathed for his role in spreading shopping malls across US suburbia, died this month. Some might scoff at his life’s achievement. I am not one of them.

Previously: Jon Jerde, founder and chairman of The Jerde Partnership, has died

Animated map shows America's love of shopping malls, 100 years in the making

2014-05-30T12:56:00-04:00

[The American shopping mall] has its own traceable lineage, from the earliest planned shopping centers to the first regional hubs for shoppers traveling by car, to the novel post-war enclosed malls of Victor Gruen [...] Malls, in short, have spread across the American landscape -- and defined it -- with remarkable success, adapting to our changing tastes along the way.

The below animation shows the spread of shopping malls across the U.S. throughout the twentieth century, and was created by Sravani Vadlamani, a doctoral student in transportation engineering at Arizona State University. Including numbers of strip, outlet, indoor and outdoor malls, growth really starts to pick up in the 1950s.

'Dead malls' get new life

2013-07-08T13:10:00-04:00

Shopping malls around the country are dropping like flies. Roughly a third have trouble keeping the lights on. And estimates from Green Street Advisors suggest 10 percent of indoor malls will go dark within a decade, due to changing consumer tastes. But some malls are putting up a fight, even with one foot in the grave.

Making Over the Mall With Parks and Sermons

2012-02-06T14:17:00-05:00

Designers in Buffalo have proposed stripping down a mall to its foundation and reinventing it as housing, while an aspiring architect in Detroit has proposed turning a mall’s parking lot there into a community farm. Columbus, Ohio, arguing that it was too expensive to maintain an empty mall on prime real estate, dismantled its City Center mall and replaced it with a park.