Regionalistic approach to shopping malls’ integration into urban environment - the premises and possibilities

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Regionalistic approach to shopping malls' integration into urban environment - the premises and possibilities

Borysenko A.S.

Modem shopping malls are the most recent invention in a series of commercial structures that aspired to a certain universality of its structure in the second half of XX century. However, the results of recent studies as well as a history of problems associated with functioning and decline of a sizable number of shopping malls at the close of XX century demand greater attention to the correspondence of existing and planned shopping malls to the needs of regional nature.

Article materials are presented using the narrative method incorporating analysis and generalization of exist-ing research on architectural and functional properties of shopping malls, particularly stressing the emerging and potential problems of universalized introverted shopping mall scheme. shopping mall commercial structure

Traditional advantages of introverted structure of the shopping mall are as follows - the better manageability of inner space providing better protection against harmful environmental factors, better security, closed-in and easily programmed pedestrian circulation systems inside; reinforcement of contrast between the inner and outer environment serving towards emphasizing the experience of being inside with better influence on shop-ping mall's situational attractiveness. The disadvantages of introverted structure are following - the uniform scheme of use that is a rare but prolonged visit for customer; the frequent loss of a significant part of conven-ience due to forced increase in time and effort costs for visitor inside; the monofunctional logic of isolated commercial mechanism in urban fabric with decreased role of public use. Potential advantages of the region- alistic approach taking into account the cultural component of sustainable development are an increase in familiarity and immediacy in mall environment's perception, addressing of the character and peculiarities of the place, emphasizing of local and distinctive traits for the shopping experience, better involvement of social and cultural potential of the region.

Keywords: shopping mall, urban integration, sustainable development, regionalism.

Nowadays, the world practice in the con-struction of shopping centers tends to shift from a utilitarian approach, dedicated solely to the retail function itself, towards customer ex-perience and atmospheric qualities of public and commercial spaces within. These spaces often take semblance of idealized fragments of urban fabric akin to traditional shopping streets or market squares. Another important trend to note is an increased importance of so-cial-oriented and non-retail functions that con-tribute to atmosphere, and the strife for seam-less integration of shopping centers in the life-style of its visitors. However, being artificially created and programmed to incite certain reac-tions in customers, according to rules inherited from strictly functional utilitarian approach, means that the shopping mall environment is perceived at a significant contrast with urban environment that is more complex and varied socially and culturally, having been formed ac-cording to more complex rules in the course of longer spans of time. The significant size and urban impact of shopping malls designed as a single centrally directed complex and the dom-ination of commercial function over others in its structure only serve to enforce that contrast. These very factors are also a source of many commercial advantages for this type of build-ings as it gained universal prominence follow-ing its initial commercial success in 1960s. However, the results of recent studies as well as a history of problems associated with the functioning and decline of a sizable number of shopping malls at the closing of XX century, demand greater attention to the correspond-ence of design of existing and planned shop-ping malls to the needs of regional nature, es-pecially conforming to the needs of local pop-ulace.

Citing existing research on shopping malls general structure and functionality, spe-cial mention must be made of works by B. Maitland [1] and E. Zeidler [2] that touched upon questions of functioning and perception of shopping mall environment located in urban setting. A number of theses exists on the envi-ronment of transitive public commercial spaces inside shopping malls, among them the works of M. Lazareva [3], D. Vorontsova [4] and O. Berezko [5]. The general issues of ur-ban environment perception are highlighted in the study of K. Lynch [6]. Articles by B. Lorch and J. Smith [7], V. Reimers and V. Clulow [8], J. Stillerman and R. Salcedo [9] are dedi-cated to the problems, side effects and unfore-seen uses of traditional shopping mail's struc-ture. The emerging changes in shopping mall's design and its premises are outlined in works of M. Davidenko [10], Zheng Tan [11], studies of Urban Land Institute conducted by Michael D. Beyard et al [12], M. Leanne Lachman and Deborah L. Brett [13], as well as the research of Freedman Tung & Sasaki for United States Environmental Protection Agency [14]. Mean-while, the issues of regionalistic approach in shopping mall design as of yet had a limited coverage, remaining out of focus in the major-ity of works. In light of that, an overview of emerging problems in functional utilitarian ap-proach taken as a universalized one in respect to the structure and anticipated perception of shopping mall environment is considered use-ful as it can help denote the potential premises for application of a regionalistic approach. The resulting data is expected to be useful in high-lighting the potential advantages and limita-tions, possibilities and resources for integra-tion by different aspects of shopping mall's structure and environment into the particulari-ties of urban setting and place.

Materials and methods

Article materials are presented using the narrative method incorporating analysis and generali-zation of existing research on architectural and functional properties of shopping malls, particularly concerning the premises for the emerging changes in shop-ping malls design.

Results

The development of shopping malls on out-of-town territories in 1920-1950s and its subsequent success in that quality in USA, has led to the recognition of its associated proper-ties as substantial in its success and universal in application. Consequently, these properties, primarily constituting the out-of-town shop-ping malls' introverted structure, began to be replicated in new shopping malls across the world in the course of 1960-1970s, situated in out-of-town as well as in urban locations [8, 11]. Previous studies have revealed that the shopping mall located in downtown while hav-ing an introverted structure derived from an out-of-town mall, draws off the significant part of pedestrian movement and corresponding customers' attention from surrounding city territories due to its overwhelming urban scale, convenience of shop density and present com-mercial advantages [7]. Additionally it creates a “blind spot” in adjacent streets, transforming them into the transit and service connections instead of a lived-in vital urban environment [1]. These changes in use serve to further high-light the isolation of the city from the nexus of activity inside the mall. The more introverted, faced inside and locked within itself the struc-ture of this mall, the more the “fortress effect” described above will manifest itself. The means of integrating shopping mall's structure into the surrounding city's structure are the use of extroverted facades incorporating adjacent streets into the “city - shopping mall” system as interjacent buffer commercial spaces, an in-creased number of visual and transitive-com-munication contacts between the mall and the city, the immediacy of pedestrian movement crossing inside and outside of shopping mall, with decreased perceived contrast for inside and outside spaces. In theory, these means are able to diminish the corresponding “fortress effect” [15].

Meanwhile the contrast of shopping mall's inside and outside environments an-swers the commercial logic of shopping mall's positioning and functioning as a universalized solution. Protected enclosed environment, vis-itors circulation systems looped into its inner logic, technological methods aimed to maxim-ize the visitor retention time (time of being on-site), the peculiar atmosphere of visit differing from customer's everyday experiences, - all these means serve to favorably emphasize the character of shopping mall environment, with the goal of increasing its situational attractive-ness, resulting in larger amounts of time spent by visitor inside the complex.

The isolated detached microcosm of shopping mall locks its entire world inside its environment, correspondingly insulating the very event of visit, giving it particular im-portance in the life of its visitor. The visit to shopping mall is generally taking the better part of the day when undertaken, serving as an event awaited and prepared for. Correspond-ingly, such visits are relatively rare. There can-not be too many places like that in one citi-zen's schedule, which serves to exacerbate the competition between such social microcosms that are demanding progressively larger in-vestments with significant risks. The increase in contrast between shopping mall's inner en-vironment and outer spaces of adjacent streets can result in the locking of pedestrian circula-tion systems inside the mall, leading to pedes-trian and commercial activity starvation in sur-rounding urban area. This in turn interrupts the coherency and mixed-use logic of urban envi-ronment. Correspondingly, the functions and situations taking place inside the shopping mall are not integrating into the continuity of urban life, forming a situational alternative to it. Besides, the utilitarian methods of maxim-izing the situational attractiveness are often harming the very convenience of shopping mall's use by forcing visitors to expend addi-tional time and effort in navigating and reach-ing their goals inside the complex [8].

Meanwhile the universal scheme is al-ready broken in a number of shopping malls and related commercial structures constructed across the world. Among them are lifestyle centers oriented to the greater intermixing of functions, readily utilizing open-air spaces in its structure; the urban integrated malls of USA and Canada aimed to the “seamless” in-tegration and perception of its environment. The results of incorporating energy-saving technologies in Singapore's shopping malls are also incompatible with traditional utilitar-ian paradigm of shopping mall design, e.g. the use of natural lighting in 313@Somerset Mall to decrease energy consumption versus the lack of windows with goal of manipulating the visitor's perception of time in introverted malls. The reason for that is the municipal leg-islation of Singapore enforcing demands of sustainable development on new construction. The vertical malls in Hong-Kong are also worth mentioning, as the regional peculiarities of its situation, namely limited size of the floor, has led to the emergence of new types of vertical structural organization, previously considered commercially unsustainable under universalized utilitarian approach [11]. As of today, these shopping malls are commercially viable.

An important aspect of commercial via-bility and success is a situation when it is lack-ing - namely examples of shopping malls that has declined, lost part of its tenants or closed off [16]. It is necessary to note that the phe-nomenon is most pronounced in USA where the rapid development of shopping malls in 1950-1960s is connected to a number of local factors that led to the wrong evaluation of placement for the number of commercial com-plexes as well as a subsequent oversaturation of market for this format [14]. However, gen-eral world's demographical and economic trends give reason to assume the possibility of similar consequences for building markets in other countries as shopping malls are actively built across the world. A significant example of mall in commercial decline is South-China- Mall in Dongguan, the largest shopping mall in China that has also became the largest “dead” mall in the world in 2005-2015 due to errors in evaluating its commercial program and positioning [17]. Thereby the shopping malls, being the objects of significant invest-ments in its construction stage, become factors of significant commercial risks, more pro-nounced as the competition is escalating in wake of new shopping malls' construction, es-pecially in countries like Ukraine, where the amount of potential customers is not growing, if not shrinking. In light of that situation the identification of characteristic traits, the pecu-liarities of ambiance and niches of use in the structure of potential customer's interest for every shopping mall's design is considered important.

This casts the question of shopping mall's characterises adequate for any chosen region in a new light - an issue of its corre-spondence to the local context and its relation-ship with present setting of its situation can be-come a question of commercial viability in competition. The situational appropriateness and the flexibility of a design solution become directly related to its economic vitality, partic-ularly at the risk of potential economic crises and stagnation.

Discussion

It is useful to remark that the introverted scheme of shopping mail's structure is a logi-cal result of its development in its original quality as a single point of attention's attrac-tion and a social microcosm akin to an ideal-ized model of urban fabric. Traditional ad-vantages of introverted structure in this regard are the better manageability of isolated envi-ronment and the enforced inside-outside envi-ronment contrast that serves to better influence situational attractiveness of shopping mall. The disadvantages of this approach are the uni-form scheme of use that exacerbates competi-tion in a narrow niche; the frequent loss of a significant part of convenience due to forced increase in time and effort costs for visitor in-side; the monofunctional logic of isolated commercial mechanism in urban fabric with decreased role of public use. It is deemed evi-dent that the situation where shopping mall needs to coexist with other functions, which is inevitable in urban setting, requires that the closed system of its introverted structure be transformed into an open system, more ac-tively cooperating with the surrounding city structure and environment. The issue is in what directions and to what extent this integra-tion is possible, so as not to discard the posi-tive traits of original scheme completely.

The case studied by B. Lorch and J. Smith [7] primarily concerned the shopping mall's structure, its environment as physical surroundings. Whereas the shopping mall's environment in the city, being itself a reduced analogue of urban environment [5], is often appropriated by its visitors for other forms of urban social activities besides shopping [9], it is deemed important to consider its integration into the city as a complex process concerning all the aspects of urban environment's percep-tion. Namely, the physical environment, the processes occurring inside, and the meanings associated with the first two, together forming the perception of urban environment as it is lived-in by citizens in the course of urban life.

It is also worth to note that one of rea-sons for the changes in design approaches is a recent demand for sustainable development. The World Summit of Local and Regional Leaders in Mexico in 2010 has proposed to add a fourth component to its existing three, these being social progress, economic devel-opment and environmental responsibility, also declaring the cultural context as a pillar of sus-tainable development.

In light of that, it is deemed relevant to design the shopping mall as a comfortable multi-aspect environment reflecting, among other, the cultural peculiarities of its place. The direct adoption of traditional architectural forms and details is considered only a possible result of this approach. The factors leading to said forms' and details' appearance in regional tradition are more important in this regard - namely the social and cultural, climatic and geographical properties of the region, its in-habitants' way of life, spaces and forms pecu-liar to their perception, thus able to influence the architectural decisions available for the re-gion. It allows architects to emphasize the am-biance and the character of the place in accord-ance to recent trends in world design practice focusing on the very experience of visit and making a purchase instead of the satisfaction of need for a purchase. Accounting for the re-gional social and cultural peculiarities can also allow to create the more socially and culturally natural environment for shopping malls.

Under the aforementioned hypothesis, this study proposes to outline the following di-rections for shopping mall environment's inte-gration into an urban environment along the groups of desired qualities for said environ-ment. Accessibility is the first one, describing integration by the factor of creating the com-fortable conditions for shopping, thus working with physical environment and processes in-side. The second is the system integration of processes that is connected to mutual attrac-tion of different activities, and as such operates with the processes and its meanings. Imagea- bility is the third component, dealing with in-tegration by the factor of aesthetic decoration of shopping activity, and works with physical environment and associated meanings.

Correspondingly, the application of methods for said integration can be described by three consequent stages. First stage is the genetic foundation of design that studies the cultural context of the place and deals with cultural codes of imageability. Second stage is the assay of situational advisability that con-cerns itself with analysis of existing environ-ment, namely the climate, building site prop-erties, local materials, estimated clientele, that influences the choice of type, commercial po-sitioning and size of a mall. Third stage is the ensuring of proactive support that incorporates methods of participation, stimulating direct communication and feedback that allows the shopping mail's integration into the way of life of local populace as well as providing the pos-sibility for a timely corresponding transfor-mation of its structure and function to ensure further local support for its existence. The sec-ond stage is the most used in design practices as of present situation; recent trends also show that the methods described as part of a third stage are also gaining recognition in shopping mall design. The genetic foundation of design is seeing only limited and partial use, albeit possessing a considerable potential for creat-ing a comfortable environment for a shopping mall better integrated into the local context so-cially and culturally.

Conclusions

1. Traditional advantages of the introverted structure of the shopping mall are as follows - the better manageability of inner space providing better protection against harmful environmental factors, better security, closed-in and easily programmed pedestrian circulation systems inside; the reinforcement of contrast between the inner and outer environment serving towards emphasizing the experience of being inside with better influence on shopping mall's situational attractiveness. The disadvantages of introverted structure are following - the uniform scheme of use that is a rare but prolonged visit for customer; the frequent loss of a significant part of convenience due to the forced increase in time and effort costs for visitor inside; the monofunctional logic of isolated commercial mechanism in urban fabric with decreased role of public use.

2. Potential advantages of the regionalistic approach taking into account the cultural component of sustainable development are an increase in familiarity and immediacy in mall environment's perception, addressing of the character and peculiarities of the place, emphasizing of local and distinctive traits for the shopping experience, better involvement of social and cultural potential of the region.

3. The shopping mall's integration into the city is a complex process concerning all the aspects of urban environment's perception. It can be described as being oriented on environ-ment's qualities designated as accessibility, imageability and system integration of pro-cesses. Stages of implementing methods for integration can be divided into the genetic foundation of design, the assay of situational advisability and the ensuring of proactive sup-port of local populace.

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