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A hyperlocal strategy and refinement of the site’s relationship with the street-level and corresponding parts of Midtown will be the defining features of Heatherwick Studios’ planned Sunset Place retail regeneration project in Miami. The plan was put forth in detail via a 5-minute... View full entry
Another mixed-use retail project from Heatherwick Studio is coming to Seoul. The newly announced Hanwha Galleria project covers an existing metro subway station with a glass atrium and two landscaped plaza areas. Two asymmetrical glass volumes resembling hourglass forms and containing gardened... View full entry
Details are emerging of Netflix’s plans for a new series of "immersive experiences" that will reimagine several dead retail spaces inside shopping centers in the United States by 2025. Both the Galleria Dallas and the King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania are being targeted for the new Netflix... View full entry
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... View full entry
“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 Globe and Mail
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... View full entry
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 New York Times
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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. — The New York Times
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... View full entry
