Archinect - News

Heatherwick Studio's new Xi'an shopping district features ceramic paneling as 'sensory experience'

2023-11-20T12:16:00-05:00

Heatherwick Studio has announced their design for a new shopping center in Xi’an, China, they say will evoke the heritage of ceramics and other artistic creations endemic to the area with a completion date set for 2024.

Offering users a “sensory experience to challenge the emotional and aesthetic deprivation of online shopping,” the plan for the 1.23 million-square-foot district calls for a network of social spaces and interlocking program of mixed-scale buildings scattered throughout.

Image: MIR, courtesy of Heatherwick Studio

The design is broken down into three scales, appearing first as a green space with tapering rooflines inspired by surrounding local temples when viewed from a distance. At the street level, it will utilize a series of interlinked terraces and other landscaped spaces to offer enhanced pedestrianism and vistas of the city.

Image: Devisual, courtesy of Heatherwick Studio

The promised “sensory experience” is enacted most at the final human scale, and buildings are...

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.”

Alexandra Lange on the (ever)green potential of American dead malls

2022-06-08T20:20:00-04:00

Malls represent heavy investments in infrastructure, construction materials and place making that should not be discarded. The popularity of dead malls as sites for Covid testing and eventually vaccinations underlines these essential qualities: Easy road access, unencumbered indoor space, instant name recognition. Contemplating the mall’s roots in the garden is an opportunity not for picturesque nostalgia but for new solutions.

The author of the forthcoming title Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall, out next week from Bloomsbury, Lange crafts a nice rundown of dead mall spaces’ possible reuses as public gardens, apartment complexes, and even health care centers in a country where more than 250 such shopping centers are expected to shutter in the next three to five years.

“Some should be demolished and returned to nature, but more should be rethought from an ecological point of view. While malls are a wasteful use of land, replacement with new stand-alone buildings with space-hogging parking lots only compounds that wastefulness […]”

Toronto's Eaton Centre to undergo $77 million revitalization led by Zeidler Architecture

2022-01-21T12:55:00-05:00

Canadian commercial real estate company Cadillac Fairview (CF) has announced a $77 million revitalization of the CF Toronto Eaton Centre.

The project will see a $60 million refurbishment of its iconic galleria skylight roof. According to CF’s announcement: “The existing glass will be replaced with the latest materials and technologies to improve energy efficiency while maintaining its classic design aesthetic.”

News of this endeavor came just days after the passing of famed Canadian architect and the shopping center’s designer, Eberhard Zeidler. The refurbishment will be led by eponymous firm Zeidler Architecture Inc. and Read Jones Christoffersen consulting engineers, with construction overseen by EllisDon Corporation. The project will be carried out in two phases, starting with the south end of the mall in mid-January 2022, followed by work on the north end beginning in March 2023.

“As the original architects of the galleria, we’re honored to play a continuing role in one of the...

UNStudio completes Shanghai Jiuguang Center, one of the city's largest retail complexes

2021-12-21T19:43:00-05:00

UNStudio, in collaboration with Nihon Sekkei, has recently completed a brand new shopping center in Shanghai. Called the Shanghai Jiuguang Center, the project merges an advanced commercial ecosystem with a human-centric, customer-friendly destination.

Nihon Sekkei was tasked with developing the outer shell of the retail center, while UNStudio took on the development of the mall as a placemaking destination for customers and the larger community. This included the design of the inner courtyard and its façades, the interior of the mall, and a public rooftop terrace. User experience was the core of UNStudio’s design, informed by looking at the various ways users could engage with different spaces and by creating curated shopping experiences.

As per the architects: “This resulted in creating a synergy between the architectural and interior design, the building scale and the human scale, the geometry and materials and the inside-outside relationship.”

The courtyard and landscape area sit...

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...

Featuring a rippling glass facade by SANAA, the fully restored La Samaritaine department store opens in Paris after 16 years

2021-06-24T15:16:00-04:00

The overhauled La Samaritaine department store is now open in Paris after an $894 million restoration that has kept the building closed since 2005.

The new Samaritaine features a rippling glass veiled facade, covered patios, repaired skylights, and an updated 1907 roof that gives the shopping center's restored interior an opulent feel.

The Art Nouveau facade on Rue de la Monnaie. © Pierre-Olivier Deschamps via SANAA.

Japanese firm SANAA worked to restore the Art Nouveau and Art Deco buildings for LVHM with help from Canadian studio Yabu Pushelberg. The new Samaritaine Pont-Neuf building will now serve as a luxury shopping destination in a 19th-century retail space itself reconstructed a century ago by architect Frantz Jourdain.

Interior view of La Samaritaine's staircase and skylight features. © Pierre-Olivier Deschamps via SANAA.

The newly restored buildings had once been host to an unprofitable venture and will now feature contrasting retail spaces, with three floors aimed delibera...

MVRDV unveils “Music Mountain” for Eindhoven

2021-05-25T09:29:00-04:00

MVRDV has unveiled their design for Eindhoven’s Heuvel shopping center, creating a cultural green quarter for the Dutch city. The scheme is defined by a “glass mountain” of cultural functions topped by a rooftop park, offering a sustainable solution for both the outdated shopping center and the Muziekgebouw music venue located within it.

Image: MVRDV

Under MVRDV’s vision, the site is transformed into an urban quarter for shopping, culture, and recreation. The existing buildings are expanded and broken open, allowing for a better connection with surrounding public spaces and cultural buildings. The covered passages of the shopping center are replaced with open streets, making the quarter an active part of city life, while the accessible roofscape creates a park that adds to the area’s appeal.

Image: MVRDV

Above the shopping center, the existing Muziekgebouw will form a stacked cultural building under a “glass mountain”. The glass mountain forms an eye-catching landmark, while also ...

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...

Herzog & de Meuron's shopping center development in Basel will be topped with a middle school

2020-10-08T15:38:00-04:00

After winning the competition for a massive urban redevelopment project in their hometown of Basel in 2017, Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron now released updated material that shows a more refined and detailed concept.

The Dreispitz Nord scheme seeks to transform a former customs depot into a mixed-use urban district, expanding the reach of downtown Basel.

Image courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron.

"The urban proposal for Dreispitz Nord is based on what would seem to be the paradoxical aim of developing and increasing density, while simultaneously creating large, public green spaces," explains a statement put out by the architects.

"Density is achieved by three high-rise towers and an open perimeter block of individual, tightly spaced mid-rise buildings. This block frames a publicly accessible park in contrast to the perimeter blocks in Gundeldingen with their primarily private inner courtyards."

Image courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron.

One of the key features to achieve useful densifica...

Can nostalgia preserve the legacy of retail spaces in America?

2019-09-03T12:40:00-04:00

Architecture and nostalgia share a special relationship. Designs trends and building techniques that thrived during their heyday may not receive the same response decades later. However, one must not underestimate the following of these seemingly "outdated" designs. As the world continues to transition into a hyper-digital world, can nostalgia save the livelihood of retail shops and of retail design overall?

Kelsey Lawrence of The New York Times recently wrote an article addressing the public's attempt to preserve and cherish the quickly vanishing presence of retail spaces and big-box stores. According to Lawrence, forums and private discussion groups on Reddit and Facebook have attempted to catalog and archive these fading brick-and-mortar spaces. In addition to highlighting curated images and stories, forums like "Off the Rack" on Facebook and "r/RetailNews" on Reddit also present a display of forgotten or dwindling existences of big-box retailers, fast food restaurants, and other...

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...

10 striking store designs for your Friday inspiration

2018-11-09T09:00:00-05:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!)

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Shopping Spaces.

↑ Headfoneshop in Toronto, Canada by Batay-Csorba Architects

↑ July - Life Academy in Shanghai, China by Mur Mur Lab

↑ Savannah Bee Company in Atlanta, GA by Bergmeyer

↑ The Wing Dumbo in Brooklyn, NY by Alda Ly Architecture & Design

↑ Press Club in San Francisco, CA by BCV Architecture + Interiors; Photo: Rien van Rijthoven Photography

↑ Tory Burch Flagship by O'Neil Langan Architects

↑ The Shop in New Delhi, India by Studio Lotus; Photo: Ravi Asrani

↑ Ports 1961 Hong Kong in Hong Kong by UUfie; Photo: Grischa Rüschendorf

↑ Supreme in Brooklyn, NY by Neil Logan, Architect

Click here to see more "Ten Top Images on...

Design, Bitches lead pedestrian-friendly remodel of a major shopping center in Los Angeles

2018-08-20T16:23:00-04:00

...the center, known as Runway, is being remade as a place where pedestrians will be more inclined to hang out, shop and eat — without having to dodge vehicles. After seeing the closed-off streets packed with people during farmers markets and other special events, manager DJM Capital Partners Inc. concluded that Runway’s autocentric ethos was outdated and has decided to make the ban full time, even though the center was built only three years ago in the recently developed community.

The Runway, a 220,000 square foot retail space in Los Angeles neighborhood Playa Vista, will undergo a $9.1 million renovation lead by local architect team Design, Bitches. The complex is located next to Marina Del Rey, Venice, and Santa Monica making it part of the Westside area known as "Silicon Beach". The new plan for Runway focuses on closing off the streets and creating a more pedestrian friendly space.

The Runway at Playa Vista rendering by Design, Bitches. Image: Design, Bitches.

As shopping centers face major changes to compete with online stores, these spaces are being rebranded as "lifestyle centers" focusing on public space as their main attraction. The Runway renovation is expected to be complete by early 2019.

MVRDV's porous shopping mall in France breaks ground

2018-03-13T14:20:00-04:00

Construction has just begun on MVRDV's Lyon Part-Dieu, a shopping mall located in Lyon, France. The new design features a porous facade breaking up the exterior pattern and allowing for greater fluidity with its surrounding environment.

Lyon Part-Dieu Shopping Center by MVRDV, located in Lyon, FR. Image: Kréaction.

Dissolving the facade allows for a subtle shift from concrete to glass while also enhancing the pedestrian flow. The renovated facade features a depolluting coating on the concrete panels to improve air quality of the area.

Lyon Part-Dieu Shopping Center by MVRDV, located in Lyon, FR. Image: Kréaction.

MVRDV's competition-winning design aims to transform one of the largest downtown shopping center's in Europe.

Lyon Part-Dieu Shopping Center by MVRDV, located in Lyon, FR. Image: Kréaction.

Founded in 1975, Lyon Part-Dieu Shopping Center was an introverted complex built for the car century. The new design opens up the entire space through revitalizing and re-organizing the m...

10 store designs that make shopping an experience

2018-02-16T09:00:00-05:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!)

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Shopping Spaces.

↑ Nike's Women Studio in New York, NY by Rafael de Cárdenas / Architecture at Large

↑ Silverpeak in Aspen, CO by Bldg Seed Architects & Surface Architectos

↑ 3.1 Phillip Lim in New York, NY by O'Neil Langan Architects

↑ The Inverted Truss – Renovation of a Historical Building in Taipei, Taiwan by B+P Architects; Photo: Hey! Cheese

↑ Alessa by Taller KEN

↑ MALVA in Tigard, OR by FIELDWORK Design & Architecture

↑ MAHER Women’s Apparel Store in Hamedan, Iran by Harmonic Trend [L]; Photo: Hamed Badami

↑ ChicBus Alipay Flagship Store in Hangzhou, China by LYCS Architecture; Photo: Elton, HU Xianjuan

↑ House of Pure Vin ...

Mallification: The shopping mall isn't so dead after all

2018-01-23T14:13:00-05:00

[...] the ever increasing mallification of our environment threatens to undermine the public common ground on which our societies were founded: public places should address an abstract, inclusive notion of the public, instead of a defined, limited, and exclusive (in the literal sense of the word) audience. Conversely, we should not confuse or conflate trite stores (even if they place trees inside and call themselves town squares) to be an ersatz public domain.

Janno Martens' essay for Failed Architecture explores the many deaths and resurrections of the shopping mall and highlights three phenomena of mallification — the creeping privatization of public spaces and replacement of the organically grown city with an imagineered 'experience' of what only resembles an urban, collective space.

Zaha Hadid Architects completes 32,000m² CityLife Shopping District in Milan

2017-12-08T19:19:00-05:00

Zaha Hadid Architects designed the newly opened CityLife Shopping District in Milan, as part of the larger CityLife redevelopment that is expected to welcome over 7 million visitors annually when it's completed in 2020.

Photo © Hufton+Crow.

Located above the Tre Torri station on the M5 line of Milan's Metro network, the 32,000m² shopping district combines a new public park with indoor and outdoor piazzas, a food hall, and variety of shops, restaurants, cafes, and a cinema, as well as health and well-being facilities. Directly above the district is the 44-story Generali Tower that will be occupied by the insurance company's Milan-based staff of 3,000 in 2018.

Photo © Hufton+Crow.

The bamboo flooring, louvered ceiling, and columns add a sense of warmth in the interior. “Assembled with resins under high pressure, engineered bamboo blocks were carved by 5-axis CNC milling and hand-finished to create the interior columns, capitals and counters,” ZHA...

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."

Stefan Al on why the shopping mall isn't dying

2017-03-24T19:41:00-04:00

...it is not the mall that is declining, but suburbia. The mall, meanwhile, is becoming urban. In fact, a new breed of shopping centre is integrating so seamlessly into its urban surroundings that it can be difficult to draw any line between city and mall whatsoever. On both sides of the Pacific, the mall is not “dead”. It has simply transformed...[but] “While the idea of the shopping mall becoming ‘urban’ has a certain appeal, the net effect is to turn the city into a shopping mall.”

Stefan Al, author of Mall City: Hong Kong's Dreamworlds of Consumption, writes about how shopping malls in places such as New York, Melbourne, and Hong Kong are increasingly blending into the cities themselves — transforming into “a new breed of shopping centre”, Al writes.

Explore mitigating human suffering via design in this New School symposium

2017-02-23T13:41:00-05:00

As cities densify and the global population increases, much has been made of reclaiming physical spaces: but how does one reclaim a place that is bound up in tragedy, whether that tragedy was natural or man-made? On March 3rd and 4th, Parsons the New School for Design will host a symposium featuring Lina Sergie Attar, a Syrian-American architect, writer, and activist who hails from Aleppo.

In addition to Attar's keynote address, the symposium, entitled “Making Home in Wounded Places: Memory, Design, and the Spatial," will explore several dozen case studies dealing with refugee shelters, the repurposing of Latin American prisons into shopping malls, and how painful memories of the past have been represented and memorialized in places including a Warsaw ghetto. Those interested in registering to attend can do so on the website.

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:

Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Shopping Spaces" Pinterest Board

2016-10-28T14:57:00-04:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!)

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Shopping Spaces.

↑ Innisfree flagship store in Seoul, South Korea by Innisfree; Installation and Facade: SOFTlab

↑ Aesop ABC Viertel in Hamburg, Germany by Vincent Van Duysen Architects; Lighting Designer & Manufacturing: PSLab

↑ UYU Ice Cream in Vancouver, Canada by Leckie Studio Architecture + Design; Photo: Ema Peter

↑ Daily Roast in Bangkok, Thailand by Whitespace Ltd

↑ WILL Legacy Store in Detroit, MI by McIntosh Poris

↑ Josefinas NoLIta Flagship in New York, NY by Christian Lahoude Studio

↑ Pressed Juicery in Beverly Hills, CA by Standard®

↑ Ferrari Store in Maranello, Italy by IOSA GHINI ASSOCIATI

↑ 14 Dover Street, Alexander McQueen f...

Artist catalogs the drab architecture of America's megachurches

2016-05-03T13:50:00-04:00

Lisa Anne Auerbach created a ‘megazine’ of structures reminiscent of shopping malls or warehouses, hidden away from city centers, where thousands of people worship every week [...] The conception of the cathedral is not only where one goes to be spiritual or commune with God, but to feel awe through the grandeur of the architecture [...] the US megachurch buildings are stripped wholesale of that sense of wonder and connection to the past; they are also far from the focal point of a city.

Leaking water delays opening of World Trade Center Transit Hub's luxury shopping mall

2015-11-16T15:54:00-05:00

A persistent water leak is among the problems that have delayed the opening of the mall, which was supposed to be operating by now, to the first half of 2016. It is the latest setback to bedevil the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, the $3.7 billion rail terminal that will also house Westfield’s $1.4 billion shopping center. [...] The latest twist involves water penetration around the construction site of 3 World Trade Center, an office tower abutting the hub, which began in late summer.

Related on Archinect:

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.

Ten Top Images on Archinect's new "Shopping Spaces" Pinterest Board

2015-11-06T20:01:00-05:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!)

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the brand new board Shopping Spaces.

↑ Mills Pharmacy in Birmingham, MI by M1/DTW

↑ Rehabilitation of Santa Caterina Market in Barcelona, Spain by Miralles Tagliabue EMBT; Photo: Alex Gaultier

↑ Showroom Eurobike - Porsche in Brasília, Brazil by 1:1 arquitetura:design

↑ T-MAGI in Copenhagen, Denmark by WE Architecture; Photo: Enok Holsegaard

↑ XOCOLATTI in New York, NY by De-Spec

↑ Otsuka-Dofukuten in Kyoto, Japan by Yusuke Seki

↑ Aesop DTLA in Los Angeles, CA by Brooks + Scarpa

↑ MAC BEBEKOY in Istanbul, Turkey by URAS X DILEKCI

↑ Uhrwerk (shop) in Vienna, Austria by smartvoll Architekten ZT KG

(Cover pic: Melissa - We Are Flowers in New York, NY by SO...

A supermall grows in fracking country

2015-06-08T14:13:00-04:00

Today Williston—which sits atop the oil-rich Bakken shale formation—is enjoying a second life as a key player in the state's booming economy. Following several years of record population growth and real estate development, the town will soon boast one more draw: a $500 million retail mecca complete with shopping, a hotel and indoor water park. Not bad for a town of just 32,000 people. [...] "The U.S. isn't overretailed, it's under-idea-ed"

We discuss the decline and (perhaps inevitable) death of the American shopping mall on episode #32 of Archinect Sessions, "For in that death of malls, what dreams may come?"

More info and recent news on dead malls:

Can't find office space in San Francisco? Try the mall.

2015-06-02T18:21:00-04:00

For a fledgling startup, finding an office in San Francisco can be a real nightmare. Rents are now climbing past $60 a square foot, second only to Manhattan in the US [...]. This means young startups have to get creative if they insist on staying within the city. And Westfield, one of the world’s largest mall operators, has a solution for them: Bespoke, a 37,000-square-foot coworking and event space within its shopping center in downtown San Francisco.

Dubai planning the world's biggest shopping mall

2014-07-09T13:54:00-04:00

Dubai is already home to the biggest shopping mall in the world, but that apparently isn't enough. The emirate is planning an even bigger mall, one so massive it's already being described as a temperature-controlled city. It's going to be called Mall of the World, and will stretch for 48 million square feet. The plan may seem curious to Americans watching their neighborhood shopping malls start to fade.