Archinect - News

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...

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markets and other special events, manager DJM Capital Partners Inc. concluded that Runway’s autocentric ethos was outdated and has decided to make the ban full time, even though the center was built only three years ago in the recently developed community.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.

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:

World's first climate-controlled domed city to be built in Dubai

2014-07-13T12:48:00-04:00

Some have already joked about the city's future three million square foot "wellness district,” saying it is being designed for those who shop not only for new outfits, but also for new bodies. According to the project's press release, the domed wellness area "will offer a holistic experience to medical tourists and their families, ensuring access to quality healthcare, specialized surgical procedures and cosmetic treatments."

And thus we have the blueprint of the 0.1%'s vision of the future. An 'ideal' world existing inside a bubble, safe from the starving, diseased masses.

Massive Development Anchored by Old Post Office Proposed in Heart of Chicago

2011-07-26T15:36:52-04:00

Architect Booth Hansen and developers just revealed plans to turn the underutilized area just east of Willis (Sears) Tower into a retail center capped with 120 story twin towers and a 20 acre rooftop park. Planned in three phases, the $3.5 billion dollar project is anchored by a renovation of the historic post office. The next two phases will increase the square footage to 16.1 million square feet

What seems to be a rarity in the States now the massive project proposal promises to be everything for everyone placed in the heart of Chicago. The developer claims to have enough money to start the first phase of renovating the post office now.