(S) mall inversion by jessica heesu lim

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S(M)ALL INVERSION

PLAYING ON THE EDGE OF THE CITY IN AUCKLAND DOWNTOWN SHOPPING CENTRE

BY JESSICA HEESU LIM

Thesis submitted to University of Auckland in partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Architecture degree (Professional) 2014


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A B S T R A C T As the act of purchasing surpasses most activities in both number and breadth in our lives, retail spaces are often thought of as civic destinations for everyday practice. In our society, shopping is one of the most crucial social interactions. It is an experience of social networking because it is usually what we do when we “go out”, it is how we satisfy our need to socialise – to feel we are part of public life. We evidently like going to shopping to discover, experience, or because of the social contact with the community. Shopping can be experienced as an event rather than just a practice of purchasing. Consumption provides a social bridge between the communal and the individual. This thesis proposes to regenerate Downtown Shopping Centre in Auckland CBD. Next to the Britomart central transportation hub, along a key pedestrian axis, with the planned inner City Rail Link, the urban implications of this site are vast. The current status of the shopping centre is under-performing, blocked up by large billboards on the outside, with a conventional interior, large spaces given to be public are not functioning at all, such as the underpopulated Queen Elizabeth Square. The shopping mall has now become a sales machine of profit and commodification which has lost the environmental- and people-orientated values that Victor Gruen, the first architect to build the shopping mall, wanted to convey. How can we regenerate a mall as an incubator for social and civic life so that it creates a revitalising atmosphere? The new typology of the mall will consist of “event” spaces for shopping and other activities which are beyond the banality of typical retailers and reconcile social groups such as locals and tourists, merging community life and creating a new space of consumption being “inverted”. S(m)all Inversion is the idea of reciprocating a larger entity (a mall) into smaller components (a series of shops), constituting a village inside a building, where retailers are contained inside an envelope, blurring one’s perception of inside and outside, and fundamentally changing one’s experience of shopping and everyday life.


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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my family for all the love with continuous support and encouragement throughout the year. Secondly, I would like to thank my supervisors, DR. Manfredo Manfredini and Adrian Lo, for their guidance, all the priceless support and dedication towards this thesis exceeding my own expectations. And I thank my studio friends who kept me going, discussed with me, and put up with my questions. Special thanks to everyone that I contacted for information and feedbacks during the year: Anner Chong Anthony Brand Chris Barton JI Park JM Lim BG Son


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C O N T E N T S 1. Introduction: The Play of Small Mall Inversion 2. The evolution of shopping typologies as a public to private realm. 3. Contemporary architecture of shopping

3.1 Recent Shopping mall and how it works 3.2 Downfall of Shopping malls

4. Precedents: mall redevelopments

4.1 The term ‘De-malling’: Inversion of the original strategy of emerging mall design 4.2 Mizner Park, Florida 4.3 Belmar Village, Colorado 4.4 Cottonwood New Neighbourhood, Utah

5. Proposal: Site analysis, project aims and design strategies

5.1The Site: Auckland Downtown Shopping Centre 5.1.1 Site Analysis: Overview and history 5.1.2 Site Analysis: Problems 5.1.3 Site Analysis: Urban design aspects: Accessibility 1: pedestrian axis + waterfront axis Accessibility 2: transport hub - The Inner city rail proposal 5.2Design aim and strategies 5.2.1 The aim: Urban Everyday Practices 5.2.1.1 Everyday 5.2.1.2 The Compli-city: Anchors and connectors; Object and fields; Individual and collective 5.2.1.3 Places in the City 5.2.1.4 From Non-Place to Anthro pological Spaces 5.2.1.5 Actors and Networks in retail precinct


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5.2.2 The strategy: How to reinterpret the play into the site 5.2.2.1 Inside/outside Inversion: Village inside a building 5.2.2.2 Positive/Negative Space Inversion: Event Space intersections 5.2.2.3 Perception Inversion: Porosity of faรงade and perforated boundaries

5.3 Design concept: Box-Scheme 5.4 Design development through iterations 5.4.1 Scheme 1: H-Scheme + Inner city rail 5.4.2 Scheme 2: Event Scheme 5.4.3 Scheme 3: Tetris Scheme

6. The final proposal

6.1 Final Scheme 6.2 Mini-malls 6.3 Images 6.4 Future projections

7. Conclusion Bibliography Appendix


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Introduction

I N T RO D U C T I O N THE PLAYING ON THE EDGE OF THE CITY IN AUCKLAND DOWNTOWN SHOPPING CENTRE

Shopping and Urban Spaces The recent growth of urban population has resulted in the use intensification of central city public spaces. The growth has increased the number of ‘enclosures’ (entertainment centres, shopping malls and alike) which have little relationship with their surrounding context. Due to the introverted nature of these structures open urban public spaces are eroded. The current paradigm of a shopping mall is an isolated island that does not have connectivity to the existing context. Victor Gruen, the architect who first invented the mall, stated: By affording opportunities for social life and recreation in a protected pedestrian environment, by incorporating civic and educational facilities, shopping centres can fill an existing void. They can provide the needed place and opportunity for participation in modern community life that the ancient Greek Agora, the Medieval Marketplace and our own Town Squares provided in the past1. The shopping mall today has now become a profit-making machine which has lost the environmental- and peopleorientated values that Gruen sought to convey. The operational system and perception of malls is differed from what it was in the past. It is failing to become a public destination as it was. The shopping centre is no longer just a place to shop, but is the heart of a community where social encounters occur and recreational events are held. The privatisation of public space has resulted in the demise of public plazas and town squares and replaced by tightly controlled interior spaces discouraging social activity. Though these traditional exterior public domains contained commercial purposes, they still had civic aspects that transcended it and provided

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Gruen and Smith, Shopping towns USA, (Ny: Reinhold, 1960), 24. The misnomer in the quote is that agoras and town squares are fundamentally exterior spaces, whereas a conventional shopping mall is an introverted interior space, which the design proposal will fundamentally address.


Introduction

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the public realm for people to meet. Shopping should be an instrument to enhance the quality of civic life where public and communal needs of people in urban conditions are crucial. The act of shopping is a key form of public activity, so much so that in contemporary life, shopping is the main if not only means of experiencing city. “[S]hopping has infiltrated – even replaced – almost every aspect of urban life.”2 Various spatial typologies such as streets, train stations, museums, and even the internet are shaped by mechanisms of shopping and consumption. In the 21st Century urban life could not be understood without shopping. There are few activities that unite us as human beings in the way shopping does. Apart from housing and work, no other activity compares in sheer quantity. Shopping is a genuine third place (after home and work) where need, desire and people come together.3 Consumption is not only a way of defining self-identity but also a means of communication.4 However, from the early 19th century, malls offer far more than material products such that they are becoming ‘social centres’.5 Today, shopping as an experience is transforming from one of mere purchase of commodities to one of journey and intersocial narratives. As Peter Coleman, the author of Shopping Environments, claims, “Shopping expeditions are continuing to progress from providing experiences to transformations, for instance, by incorporating opportunities for the visitor to participate in a civic or cultural activity.”6

2 OMA blurb of Koolhaas, Rem. Project on the City II: The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping (Taschen; 1St Edition edition, 2002) 3 Kelver, Ann De. Experience shopping (Tielt: Lannoo Publishers, 2008). 4 Zukin, Sharon and Manguire, Jennifer Smith, “Consumers and Consumption” in Annual Review of Sociology Vol. 30 (February 18, 2004). 5 Crawford, Margaret. “The World in a Shopping Mall” in Shopping as an entertainment experience (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington books, 2007). 6 Coleman, Peter. Shopping Environments: evolution, planning and design (Oxford: Architectural Press, 2006).


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Introduction

While much literature has been published in the past regarding shopping mall design guidelines, the change in mall requirements have outdated much of the information available, and there is little available on any New Zealand case studies. Currently, there is no solid direction for how New Zealand’s suburban malls need to adapt in order to solve these issues, and they therefore lack a design direction suited for the 21st century. The thesis aim is to make an urbanized shopping mall more public and communal, adapting a space for different types of practices into Auckland’s Downtown Shopping centre could be the first step to build up a more vibrant shopping mall atmosphere. Hence thesis asks: how can we regenerate a mall as an incubator for social and civic life so that it creates a revitalising atmosphere? Downtown Shopping Centre The former Westfield Downtown Shopping Centre is considered the most underperforming shopping centre in New Zealand.7 At first sight of the mall, the most imposing element of the building would be the billboards which runs across 60% of the two facades. The building itself should “stand out, rather than buildings with signs,”8 quoted by Bob Dey from the councillor Graeme Mulholland. Another failure is the public spaces provided such as Queen Elizabeth Square located at the “main” entrance, as here should have the maximum movement with sociable experience. Considering its location next to the central transportation hub (network of bus, train, and ferry), the current building lacks the condition of a threshold or transition to respond to the urban issues of the surrounding neighbourhood. These includes: urban pedestrian axis with a dead end, no visual or physical linkage with waterfront, and lacking consideration of future inner City Rail Link that is proposed to begin operation in 2020. Opportunities for design will be addressing all these problems while exploring interior/exterior relationships (integrating exterior/ interior, private/public,individual/community relationships); possible new train platform; re-connecting parts of the city providing a terrace for social connections; and to have an urban presence without billboard signage . The regeneration of the mall will portray the convergence of social activity and commercial performance. Whilst the nature of a shopping mall will always be commercially driven, it cannot successfully function in this way without a measure of social activity to attract consumers.

7 Gibson, Anne. “Options for Downtown mall wide open” in The New Zealand Herald (Auckland: The New Zealand Herald, 7 April 2007). 8 The Bob Dey Property Report. Councillors stand fast against more downtown signage. (2005, 20 Sept) http://www.propbd.co.nz/councillors-stand-fastagainst-more-downtown-signage/


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Design Proposal: Shopping as Event The design strategy is to contain a ‘village and its streets’ inside a mall. A new typology of private and public will be constituted working with notions of positive-negative, solidvoid, which will not only blur inside and outside relationships, but create a sense of community in the new ‘inverted’ mall. The typical interiorized shopping mall is a highly purified and controlled space that constructs a community with no poverty, division or eccentricities creating a “Pseudo-public space”9. The design proposes to counter the controlled heterotopic space of the current mall paradigm by providing spaces for everyday and spontaneous activity, as reinforced by Michel Foucault who claims, “Liberty is a practice.” 10 The space between the exterior envelope and the interior village is activated as an “event space” It is purposely left “unprogrammed” (Tschumi’s Event Space) so that it is objectified into a field condition - a space of flow (Stan Allen). Field conditions move from the one towards the many, from individuals to collectives, from objects to field. It has the ability to unify the diverse elements while respective of each identity, described as a ‘propagation space of effects’ which is characterised through the porosity and local interconnectivity within the public space. ‘Form matters, but not so much the form of things as the form between things.’11 The “line”, as Stan Allen defines, is the spaces in between which becomes objectified and creates a new space of flow. And the “points” known as anchors and connectors represents attraction and movement of flow within urbanities which reoccupies the space by extending and inserting an attractor system of diffusion and fields of complicity. The intention is to create an indeterminate space (deprogrammed event space) at the intersection of two known sets; the given perimeter of th e site, and the shopping mall. Its program is treated not as a single organism, but rather as an aggregate of smaller elements (small inversion). The clusters of small elements will interlock with each other to support and form a connection. These are then wrapped with a porous envelope which provide an “event space”.This is an architecture that operates urbanistically, giving the effect of moving through a city street, introducing a programmatic complexity (giving a blurred inside/outside perception) to the experience of the mall. 9 Dovey, Kim. “Inverted city” in Framing places-mediating power in built form, (New York: Routledge, 1999) 10 Michel Foucault quoted by Stan Allen in Points + lines: diagrams and projects for the city (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999). 11 Ibid.


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The new ground level will adhere to a typology of a main street, where ‘event spaces’ inside the mall are unprogrammed spaces that have the potential to allow the public to engage in their everyday practices or activities. The event spaces can be continuously morphing to adapt to fast-changing new trends and needs. By making malls less like a mall and more like a community centre, it will reintegrate vitality from consumerism back into people’s daily patterns, recreating the essence of urban life through experiencing and rhythm of shopping. Chapter Outline Along with the aforementioned issues, the idea of inversion forms the basis for the research question of this thesis. The scope of the research is mostly limited to the investigation of the small inversion concept in relation to research of users’ demographics, International precedents, and the design case study of this research. The thesis will begin with an investigation of Shopping typologies from the past, particularly looking at Development of retail typologies such as Agora and Marketplace, Arcade and Gallery and Department Store, demonstrating the start of the privatisation of public destinations. This is followed by chapter 3, an analysis of contemporary shopping malls in general looking at form, morphology and configuration, movement and control. This process uncovers weaknesses of how contemporary malls work. Specifically these weaknesses relate to their lack of experience; lack of permeability and flow of movement; lack of providing a sense of a place; lack of publicity. The mall has become a privitised ‘profit-generating-machine’ as Victor Gruen, the creator of successful malls, did not intended it to be. Chapter 4 surveys international mall case studies and theory. The chapter looks at the innovations which help recent mall redevelopments to unite the social and commercial goals, as well as combating suburban sprawl. The malls are surveyed for its facilities, boundaries, spatial layout, and considers the ability of social interaction. The redevelopments of international malls involve an inversion of the original strategy of mall design allowing for a general “opening up” or “breaking up” of the traditional mall, which is the process labelled as ‘de-malling’. Mostly typified by American malls. While many aspects of this process are useful for answering the research question, it poses new questions of how it can be applied in the context of New Zealand. The completion of previous research of the mall will lead to the proposal of the thesis. Starting with site analysis of the existing Auckland Downtown Shopping Centre in chapter


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5.1 Four aspects of the site will be looked into, specifically, its history and urban layout, the problems, urban axes (pedestrian and waterfront connection), and transport hub. Chapter 5.2.1 further examines the aim of urban practices of everyday life. It explores the users’ demographics of urban everyday practices in Auckland CBD: lifestyler, activist, daily doers,and audience seeker. The conflicts and alliances of each of these will be dealt with along with the discussion of activation of public spaces; different activities; complicity (issue of complicit community the social interactions); anchors/ connectors (Steven Miles); Object and fields (Stan Allen) Chapter 5.2.2 will show the strategy that gathers various design precedents of the notion of an “inversion”, such as “Inside/outside Inversion” which is the village inside a building (volume) through houses of Aires Mateus (House in Alentejo Coast -horizontal inversion and Brejos de Azeitao -vertical inversion) and Casa dos Cubos by Embaixada Arquitectura (combined inversion); “Perception Inversion”: porosity of facade from one of the galleries of Steven Holl and perforated boundaries; “Positive/ Negative Space Inversion”: of Bernard Tschumi’s Event Space. Chapter 5.3 and 5.4 demonstrate the design process where the findings of the previous chapters are applied in the design. The role of this design is to experiment with the design criteria and the concept of three key inversions mentioned above. These chapters will include concepts: Box Scheme, developments: H-Scheme with Inner city rail, Event-Shceme with distribution of everyday practices and Tetris-envelope-Scheme. Chapter 6 and 7 will conclude by finalising the project and discuss some future projections.


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The evolution of shopping typologies as a public to private realm

2. THE EVOLUTION OF SHOPPING TYPOLOGIES AS A PUBLIC TO PRIVATE REALM

Figure 2.0 From public squares to commercial squares Image source:http://www.andrewbmyers.com/


The evolution of shopping typologies as a public to private realm

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The evolution of shopping typologies as a public to private realm

Throughout history, public plazas and town squares have provided the public realm for people to meet and “people watch”. However the privatisation of public space has resulted in the demise of these traditional exterior public domains. Such as strictly controlled interiorisation of the marketplace, like shopping malls we have today, which place limitations on public behaviour. Therefore, to understand the current condition of privatised shopping spaces, it is necessary to look how it was done in history. Contemporary retail typology is affected by past conditions and sometimes includes features from previous eras. For example, Victor Gruen, the primary theorist of retail typology shopping malls, wanted to re-establish face-to-face communication, community life and culture like in the traditional public squares but in a climate protected environment. The key innovation of designing a mall was to research the logics of existing retail typologies to produce a new typology: the structural marriage of the department store and the arcade. In this research the goal is to readdress the historic retail typology that Victor Gruen did and to know how retail spaces were considered as public spaces and how it became privatised. Throughout history, public spaces were formed by a combination of political, social and economic functions. In Greece, at the time of Homer around 8th century BC, public places appeared in various towns where meetings were organised, theatre pieces were enacted, festivals and elections were held. This was called the Agora which was the first formally structured market that also offered civic and commercial functions so that it created a meeting point for strangers and encouraged interactions.1 The Agora as a core gathering space in classical Greece, it provided a venue for social activities and were sometimes placed on the harbour side which was then the core part of the city centre as economy relied on the role of the port. The marketplace was held in these kind of squares or agora. It was public as it was flexible in time and people to open stalls; had civic interconnections through the vendors and buyers in the town. Often the commercial and social focal point of early towns and cities, enabled people to access the goods and services of multiple vendors in a convenient manner. The marketplace provided a venue to compare similar goods based on quantity,

1 Don Mitchell, “The End of Public Space? People’s Park, Definitions of the Public, and Democracy” in Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 85, No. 1. (Mar., 1995).


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MALL INVERSION INTO SMALLER ELEMENTS

VILLAGE ? HETEROPIA-DISNEY SPACE ?

WHAT NEXT ?

DEPARTMENT STORE (LEFT) MALL (RIGHT)

GALLERIA

ARCADE

STREETS

MARKET

STALLS Figure 2.1 Evolution of retail typology Image by author


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Figure 2.2 Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Millan (Arcade/Galleria) Image source: https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5531/12690818755_fa1438d920.jpg


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quality, and cost; it initiated competition for customersthe foundation of modern retailing. The first move towards the privatisation of public retail space was when the development of new piazzas occurred in the Renaissance period in Italian cities. These spaces became largely regularized and controlled through secular rulers. Then by the end of 18th century to modern times the market changed primarily due to demand of luxury and non-essential rarities and lifestyle goods. In Paris where there were no sidewalks and streets full with filthy and dangerous elements, the streets were not suitable for shopping. A new typology of retail buildings was introduced called arcades and galleries. The arcade slowly took the retail trade from the mediaeval market stall and the open-fronted shop into sophisticated surroundings. The arcade is a sophisticated environment of a long gallery that is covered by glass roof that forms an internal street. As national wealth increased, shopping arcades were increasingly adopted as an essential feature of the high street of many provincial towns and cities in Europe especially London and France. Even though, arcades reduced access points compared to traditional public spaces such as squares it provided the perfect route for a leisurely promenade continued from public streets with the long gallery accommodating shops to satisfy the whims of the passer-by whilst protecting them from the filth of unpaved streets and the vagaries of the weather.1 Though it was glasscovered and marble-floored, it had a strong sense of connection and flow with the publicity of the streets. Whereas colonnades promoted movement into two direction, the galleries created another dimension of urban retail space.2 The well-known Galleria Vittoria Emauele in Milan served as a model for most other galleries in Europe. It has well-made urban aspects as it worked with X, Y, Z axis. The four-storey high arcades which meet in a central point covered by an enormous glass dome, house elegant shops, restaurants , leisure areas like bars which consequently became the social centres of the town in the 19th century. Then came the development of department stores where retail spaces start to lose public amenity.

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Margaret MacKeith, Shopping arcades (Mansell Publishing LTD,

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Kelver, Ann De. Experience shopping (Tielt: Lannoo Publishers, 2008),

1985), 5. 44.


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Figure 2.3 Galeries Lafayette (Department Store) Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/holandia/8128099792/in/set-72157631864883503/


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Department stores developed in Great Britain, France and America during the mid-19th century. These ‘cathedrals of consumption’ were large singular building with multi-storeyed retail establishments, situated in the central districts of cities and provincial towns. Stores displayed a wide range of merchandise, including the latest fashions and household goods, in comfortable, often luxurious, settings. This immense building introduced the first step of control as it featured a realm of open grid planning. The fixed grid planning of shop arrangement was the outcome of studying the efficiency of the consumers’ movements-patterns. This arrangement is controlled without walls.The open planning of individual shops allowed panoptical (all-seeing) control by the users of the space as they can see each other’s activities across or vertically. A well-known French department store chain that shows this is Paris Galeries Lafayette. Also the pocket verandah space for people to be visually active. The start of the privatisatio n of public space was visible from when spaces became commercialised and interiorised. In the past, retail was seen in the public space whereas from the 18th century we see publicness in the retail space inversion. Through the developments of economy in society and increasing standards of living ordinary middle-class people were not satisfied with their everyday consumption and were intrigued by a higher quality of shopping environment that was not dirty and dangerous. In the modern and contemporary era, the settings of commercially driven environments became increasingly popular destinations for the public. These sale environments shifted from interaction and utility-based to leisure based settings. The consumption became a leisure activity which was not the issue of need but desires. The creation of department stores began the retail revolution that awakened consumers’ desire- even craving- for consumption. It shifted from a production-driven society to a consumer society. This desire for consumerism was used as a device for the retail developers to control space with clean and safe environments with a mix of shops and entertainment to maximise people and money. This we can clearly see in shopping malls today.


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3 CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE OF SHOPPING

Figure 3.0 Typical Mall Layout Image source: http://andycouncil.blogspot.co.nz/2009/02/russian-mall-illustration.html


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Contemporary architecture of shopping

3.1 RECENT SHOPPING MALL AND HOW IT WORKS According to the research and guides to shopping mall design from associations such as International Council of Shopping Centres (ICSC), a shopping centre, is defined as a typically enclosed, climate controlled environment and lights flanked on one or both sides by storefronts and entrances. On-site parking is usually provided around the perimeter of the centre and may surfaced or structured. This structure of a mall was misused through developers and owners who wanted to turn it into a lucrative form of retail. In its contemporary state, the mall is sophistically designed through developers who are paid by the owners of the land. Kim Dovey, the author of “Inverted city” in “Framing placesmediating power in built form”, states that clienteles feel an inversion of urban spatial experience due to the protected realm of consumption easing the difficulties or tension of public space. It attracts with weatherless atmosphere and constitutes a safe world without crime and cars. The mall is recognisable with its highly purified and controlled space that constructs the layout with ‘anchor’ shops for maximum profit. This constructive method of a mall model is called ‘dumbbell’. “A large ‘anchor’ store at either end was joined by an arcade (the ‘handle’) lined with a string of smaller shops. The essential innovation, however, was the syntax and not the plan.”1 The principle is that the ‘anchors’ act as ‘magnets’ to draw customers past the smaller shops, increasing the density of pedestrian traffic and ensuring that there are no economic dead ends. While this spatial structure is named after its early ‘dumb-bell’ plans, the governing syntax was the lineal link from car park to magnet with the mall as control space and the two magnets generating a fan structure.2 In the plan of a ‘dumbbell’ structure the ‘mix’ of configuration is also important 1 Dovey, Kim. “Inverted city” in Framing places-mediating power in built form (New York: Routledge, 1999), 129.

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Ibid.


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in designing a mall. The ‘mix’ of configuration of the variety of shops are formulised to determine the maximum profit for mall management. The rental space is calculated by means of where the anchor stores or magnets that favours jewellery, gifts, clothes and accessories, are placed. The attractors get the cheapest rental space and the shallow shops close to the car park entrances. These are the cheapest since people rarely notified except when entering or exiting.1 These shallow marginal locations are used for convenience outlets such as photo shops, dry cleaners and banks. They are also used for low-profit specialty stores which attract a particular rather than a general clientele-carpets, furniture, fabric, do-it-yourself, pets and optics.2 Polly Fong, the author of What makes big dumb bells a mega shopping mall?, also perceives that the classic dumb-bell concept,with large anchors at conflicting ends, is an important factor within mall dynamics in attracting consumers into and through space. Configuration is a very important design principle of the success of shopping malls and has been perfected through the control over the configuration of a shopping hub. A shopping hub consists of a large cluster of retail stores in close geographic proximity to one another.3 The mall structure, with its shop frontages became an island surrounded by parking space.4 The original shopping centre configuration has developed and transformed, with Crawford stating that Americans now shop in malls that look like cities and in cities that look like malls.5 “Shopping malls are built to

1 Ibid. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 ULI. Shopping Centre Development Handbook. (Washington, D.C: Urban Land Institute, 1978). 5 Crawford, Margaret. Suburban Life and Public Space. In D. Smiley, M. Robbins, & Priceton, Sprawl and Public Space: Redressing The Mall, ed. (New York, USA: Architectural Press. 2002), 30.


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Contemporary architecture of shopping

replicate the retail offer in established city centres, providing comparison shopping in a ‘continuous’ selling space on goods... all under one roof.”1 The definitive Handbook for shopping centre developments, Urban Land Institute has explained six traditional configurations commonly used in mall design which are: • The Strip: A line of stores tied together by a canopy over the sidewalk, which runs along the fronts of the stores. Economical for small centres, but must be kept within a reasonable length to avoid excessive walking distances and difficult merchandising. • The L: a strip, but with one end turned. Good for corner locations. • The U: a strip with both ends turned in the same direction. • The Cross: two strips crossing over on the centre point. • The Mall: a pedestrian way between two facing strips. The mall may also take other shapes, an L for example. • The Cluster: a group of retail buildings separated by small pedestrian malls or courts. It would appear that although principles of attraction do have contributory effects on the distribution of movement through the arrangement, placement and allocation of space in the tenant mix process, configuration still provides a stronger predictive power, yet the addition of an attractor increases the foot traffic considerably. Besides controlling peoples’ movement with anchors and configurations in Margaret Crawford’s, “The World in a Shopping Mall,” she lists the strategy of malling as broadly divided into four parts. Mix of control like television programming with each network of the same element; Fragmentation of a set of wants which is not a false need nor real, but is in an ambiguous state; Adjacent attraction like in theme parks, space of heterotopia (Disneyland) that entertains and stimulates and in turn encourage more shopping; Fortress-like structures which repackages the city

1 Fong, Polly. “What makes big dumb bells a mega shopping mall?” in 4th International Space Syntax Symposium (London: Space Group Publications, 2003), 10.


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Figure 3.1.1 Mall Configuration Image by author


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Contemporary architecture of shopping

no boundaries, no longer limited even by the imperative of consumption- has become the world”1. Which means the mall culture has become our culture and we live our lives dependent on consumer culture. In the past, individuals went to retail stores simply for the act of purchasing commodities of what they needed. From the early 19th century, however, malls have offered more than produced items and has become ‘social centres’2 With the amount of time people spend at malls they are starting to become a place to gather to socialize with friends, “Hanging out at the mall had replaced cruising the strip… malls are now social centres, and many even find their first jobs there.”3

As Dovey mentions that besides meeting our acquaintances, the mall does not offer a nice environment for strangers. Because of the mall creating selective people to enter, it forms a community with no poverty, division or eccentricities, it is forming a pseudo public space. The pseudo-public space of the mall is a space that forms a ‘private community’ as a space of private control coupled with public meanings, relying upon the illusion of public space.4 The mall seeks to legitimize itself as public and communal, yet this mostly leads to gestures of legitimation which are framed within private space. Dovey expresses this term of space where its ‘instrumental rationality disguised as a social communion… Urban ambience is harnessed to the profit motives of privately controlled space.’ 5 Jon Gross who wrote The Magic of the Malls can portray the inversions of city ambience: The shopping centre appears to be everything that it is not. It contrives to be a public, civic place even though it is private and run for profit; it offers a place to commune and recreate, while it seeks retail dollars; and it borrows signs of other places and times to obscure its rootedness in contemporary capitalism. The shopping centre sells paradoxical experiences to its customers, who can safely experience danger, confront the Other as a familiar, be tourists without going on vacation, go to the beach in the depths of winter, and be outside when in.6 1 Crawford, Margaret. “The World in a Shopping Mall” in Shopping as an entertainment experience (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington books, 2007), 30. 2 Ibid, 15. 3 Ibid 4 Dovey, Kim. “Inverted city” in Framing places-mediating power in built form, (New York: Routledge, 1999), 134. 5 Ibid. 6 Gross, Jon. “The “Magic of the Mall”: An Analysis of Form, Function, and Meaning in the Contemporary Retail Built Environment” in Annals of the Association of American Geographers 83, no. 1 (1993), 40.


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Developers are employing prominent architects for the primary purpose of improving the design of the shopping malls in response to market forces.1 Improved design elements relate to the architectural character of the building, colour and material of the primary structure, pedestrian flows, parking, and the relationship to the surrounding community.2 However, the some of the shopping malls eminently dead-malls, this study has investigated, are an unnecessary mix of oversized spaces, horrendous designs, uncomfortable settings, and awkward experiences, but everything within a mall is purposely created for the customer and consumption to be at its maximum, and as such, allows the redundant gap space of the shopping mall to remain at a very high standard of quality.

Figure 3.1.2 Awkward arrangement of food-court in Saylvia Park Image by Adrian Lo

1 Allen, Stan. Points + lines: diagrams and projects for the city (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999). 2 Beaumont, Constance, & Tucker, Leslie . Big-box sprawl (and how to control it). (Municipal Lawyer, 2002), 43.


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Contemporary architecture of shopping

3.2 DOWNFALL OF SHOPPING MALLS

In a ‘placeless’ blighted city, we lack communal identity and social memory, the main ingredients of a public ‘sense of place’. We desire for memorable communal experience that gives a public sense of belonging. Retail and mixed-use designs are answering a desperate need for communal spaces such as shopping malls. Earlier designs of shopping malls have replaced the physical open space of traditional public space of the Greek Agora and market space, trying to reinvent an authentic urban experience and communal setting that renews a diverse public life. Malls are the privatised public squares of the new fringe city ‘privatopia’ - of our new secular civilization. The tight control of malls’ privatised interior has the propensity to discourage social activity. In the absence of parks, plazas, or other traditional public spaces, people’s privilege to enjoy and access public space must not be reduced. Therefore, the existence of shopping malls has been counted as public space.1 As shopping malls did replace the existence of the traditional public space, in Shopping towns USA, the ‘father of shopping malls’, Victor Gruen stated: By affording opportunities for social life and recreation in a protected pedestrian environment, by incorporating civic and educational facilities, shopping centres can fill an existing void. They can provide the needed place and opportunity for participation in modern community life that the ancient Greek Agora, the Medieval Marketplace and our own Town Squares provided in the past2

1

Scharoun, Lisa. America at the Mall: the cultural role of a retail utopia (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2012) 2 Gruen, Victor and Smith, Larry, Shopping towns USA: the planning of shopping centres, (NY: Reinhold, 1960), 24.


Contemporary architecture of shopping

31

However, there are different characteristics between traditional public spaces and shopping malls as in the contemporary urban centre, shopping malls have become places for the public although they are privatised. The shopping malls will always be commercially driven, but it will not function without a measure of social activity to intrigue customers. In the privatized public space, the owner of the space has a right to exclude and include people who can enjoy the space. The creation of public space is based on security reasons rather than the interaction. Traditional public spaces such as parks, plazas, town squares, old town centres, main street areas were more accessible to various types of people to interact, meet and ‘watch other people’. It is very important for the malls to have real public interaction. The mall is no longer just a place to shop as it tried to make social encounters occur with recreational events inside. Though it tries to run social activities, traditional public spaces are still transcended by social events that take place without necessarily being organised. Some of the criticisms directed towards shopping malls are also related with design and aesthetic aspects where shopping malls are considered to offer less different experiences due to its homogenized space.1

1

Miller, D., Jackson, P., Thrift, N., Holbrook, B., and Rowlands, M. Shopping, Place, and Identity. (Oxon: Routledge, 1998).


32

Contemporary architecture of shopping

However, the shopping malls in 20th century is markedly different from what it is today. When Victor Gruen the “pioneer of the shopping centre,” who first designed a successful mall he wanted to portray the complexity and vitality of urban experience without the noise, dirt, and confusion that had come to characterise popular images of the city at the time. To him the purpose of the mall was not just a profit maker with a collection of stores. He claimed that the primary human instinct is to mingle with other human beings and so that his outcome of a mall design was the integration of commerce with community life: an “environmental architecture.”1 Today, these public meanings of Gruen’s intentions must be able to restore and vitalise our lives which are ever more absorbed and dominated by the private life.”2 If not, the shopping mall will no longer have the potential to be public space nor be successful architecture. The privately owned, managed, and controlled, mall that has promoted the development of quasi-public is down-falling dramatically. ICSC also admits that shopping is up online but down at the malls.3 Therefore if there is no experience but purchasing, the foot traffic will decline even more. The following precedent research will introduce new ways to socially interact with a process called ‘de-malling’. The process is to design a mall considering or at human scale as contemporary urban society feels nostalgic for small town experiences.4

1

Smiley, David J. Sprawl and Public Space: Redressing the Mall. (Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for the Arts. 2002), 24. 2 Kelver, Ann De. Experience shopping (Tielt: Lannoo Publishers, 2008). 27. 3 ICSC. Certified Development, Design and Construction Professional (CDP) Handbook (2009). 4 Smiley, David J. Sprawl and Public Space: Redressing the Mall. (Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for the Arts. 2002), 34.


Contemporary architecture of shopping

33

Figure 3.2.1 Empty spaces in Sylvia Park Mall Image by Adrian Lo


34

4 P R E C E D E N T


Precedent

35

4.1 The term ‘De-malling’: Inversion of the original strategy of emerging mall design Experts now estimate that the average life of an enclosed mall contain less than 10 years as malls are undergoing complete transformations. Unsuccessful ‘dead’ malls can be radically reconfigured architecturally. De-malling these failed malls is an inversion of the original strategy of emerging mall design. The process of de-malling reconnects the mall into the city’s street grid with a more balanced mix of uses by remodelling it into the residential and civic environment.1 One of the methods of demalling is removing the roof, dismantling relentless corridors, and punching through windowless walls to let in light and air. De-malling usually involves a public-private partnership, as public infrastructure and civic amenities are carefully integrated with private retail stores.2 New types of mall through de-malling will offer more public space and access so that it attracts a variety of people to give far more revitalising civic interactions with people who normally would not mix. The following will discuss three successful de-malling precedents that blurred the boundaries between the mall and publicness in urban settings.

1

Bohl, Charles. Place Making: Developing Town Centers, Main Streets, and Urban Villages. (Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute, 2002). 2 Valley, Matt. The remalling of America. National Real Estate Investor, (May, 2002).


36

Precedent

4.2 Mizner Park, Florida

200m

400m

Cottonwood Mall, 1962.

100m

100m

200m

200m 100m Cottonwood New Neighbourhood, 2014

Boca Raton Mall, 1974.

200m

400m

200m

Mizner Park, 1998.

100m

100m

400m

200m

200m

400m

100m

200m

Figure 4.2 De-malling Boca Raton Mall to Mizner Park

Surface parking

Built form parking Surface

Space Syntax Built form - main

Space Syntax - main

Structured parking

Green spaceparking Structured

Green space Space Syntax - sub

Space Syntax - sub

Image by author


Precedent

● ● ● ●

37

Original mall: Bota Raton Mall, built 1974. Redeveloped to: Mizner Park, 1987-1998. Lead Designer: Cooper Carry Inc. Clients: Private developer and council.

The redevelopment of Bota Raton Mall into Mizner Park is considered the pioneer of successful dying mall redevelopments. Although it is now aging, it is significant to this study as it was the first ever successful de-malling of an enclosed shopping mall.1 It is important to note how the introduction of a public-private partnership helped to bring non-privately owned public space to Mizner Park. The local council invested money in the scheme to ensure that two thirds of the redevelopment became public space, while the other third was leased for mixed use development. In contrast to the square shape of most central spaces, there is a long linear park running the length of the retail street. This is publicly owned and maintained, removing the negative effects of the privatisation of public space. A mix of retail stores and restaurants line each side of the park to help give the scheme a healthy night life. Three to five story office spaces and residential units were placed above the retail stores. In an attempt to break up the monotony of the edge, portions of each building are recessed, and building heights vary. While this treatment of the boundary might create invitations to stop, it is not an ideal edge for retailers. After the success of the first phase, larger office and residential structures were added, as well as civic components, including a concert hall, an arts museum and an outdoor amphitheatre. The parking lots have been replaced with four parking structures, one in each quadrant. This frees up space to allow some existing roads to be extended through the site. These parking structures are partially hidden by housing and offices which also help to create a human scaled transition between mall and suburb. However, as the sides which face the rest of the suburb are still in full view, there are blank facades at all the extremities, generating long flat boundaries which lack porosity and play. For its time Mizner Park showed positive changes in mall design, and the inclusion of housing units on the top floor, particularly those overlooking the central park “has been the most successful part of the project.”2 However it is still very much internally focussed like a traditional shopping mall. The linear park may be a truly public space, and an attempt at ecological porosity, but it is surrounded by roads, cut off like an island, and therefore isolated from the rest of the development and the suburb. This means that potential opportunities for the intersection of ecological and retail boundaries are lost.

1

Bohl, Charles. Place Making: Developing Town Centers, Main Streets, and Urban Villages. (Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute, 2002). 2 Bohl, Charles. Place Making: Developing Town Centers, Main Streets, and Urban Villages. (Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute, 2002), 177.


38

4.3 Belmar Village, Colorado

200m

400m

Cottonwood Mall, 1962.100m

100m

200m

200m

400m

Cottonwood New Neighbourhood, 2014 100m 200m

400m

400m

.

Villa Italia Mall, 1966

200m

400m

100m

Belmar Village, 2010.

100m

200m

200m

400m

400m

100m

Surface parking

Built form

Space Syntax - main

Structured parking

Green space

Space Syntax - sub

200m

400m

Figure 4.3 De-malling Villa Italia Mall to Belmar Village Image by author

Surface parking

Built form

Space Syntax - main

Structured parking

Green space

Space Syntax - sub


● ● ● ●

Original mall: Villa Italia Mall, built in 1966 Redeveloped to: Belmar Village, 2001-2012 Lead Designer: Elkus/Manfredi Architects, Ltd. Clients: Private developer and council.

39

Belmar Village is considered an exemplary mall redevelopment (Congress for the New Urbanism. 2005). Apart from one grocery store in the north western corner, the old dying mall super block has made way for existing suburban streets to be extended through the site to subdivide it into 23 smaller sized blocks. These vary in size between 50 and 200 metres long. Almost half of the new development is reserved for residential use, with the remaining split 55/45 between retail and office use as well as a cultural arts centre, and a public library. There are two main public spaces, a large green area intended as a quiet retreat for local residents, and a plaza for enticing various audiences. The plaza is deliberately surrounded by buildings containing social functions, including a bowling alley and dining areas. Like Minzer Park, there is a public-private partnership. All the buildings are owned by the developer, but the streets, sidewalks and parks are publicly owned and therefore truly public. The ‘real’ social vibe gained from these truly public spaces is described in an interview with the Lakewood City Manager: “One of the best places is that plaza. Kids pushing the round ball that sits on the water, all the young people there on Friday night sitting outside the pub, ‘cause you can smoke outside. In winter you have people skating. That’s real, it’s not an artificial dynamic.”1 Much attention was given to the edges of large buildings. The awkwardly shaped cinema (in one of the central blocks) is fully wrapped (with a gap between for servicing) by mixed use buildings and a parking structure at its rear. The parking structure itself is lined at its base by many small artists’ studios. The retained grocery store is also partially wrapped in this manner except for its entrance which has been opened up with windows and sky lights. With mixed use buildings lining the edges of big box tenants, it allows developers to focus resources into the architecture of the entrance boundary only.2 The project was delivered over various phases, with the inner blocks being developed first, as a ‘seed’ for future growth. The potential issue here is that the extremities of the site are last to be developed, and therefore can ruin the approach to the centre of the site during the phased process. This occurred at a similar redevelopment called Winter Park Village, where the central retail street was finished but the project lost the financial backing before further mixed uses could be established on site. This left the development as little more than ∙ a lifestyle centre surrounded by big box stores.3 What may have helped Belmar Village succeed where Winter Park Village failed is that a central gathering plaza was established early, and that several building types were developed in each phase without ever over building a single category.

1

Dunham-Jones, Ellen and Williamson, John. Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban design solutions for redesigning suburbs. (USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2009), 161. 2 Steuteville, R. How to mitigate the impact of big box stores. (2008) Accessed July 15, 2014. http://newurbannetwork.com/tools/howto-reports/9445/how-mitigateimpact-big-boxstores 3 Dunham-Jones, Ellen and Williamson, John. Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban design solutions for redesigning suburbs. (USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2009)


40

4.4 Cottonwood New Neighbourhood, Utah

200m

400m

100m

Cottonwood Mall, 1962.

200m

Cottonwood New Neighbourhood, 2014 100m

200m

400m

100m

Cottonwood Mall, 1962.

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Cottonwood New Neighbourhood, 2014

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Surface parking

Built form

Space Syntax - main

Structured parking

Green space

Space Syntax - sub

200m

400m

Figure 4.4 De-malling Cottonwood Mall to Cottonwood New Neighbourhood Image by author

Surface parking

Built form

Space Syntax - main

Structured parking

Green space

Space Syntax - sub


41

● Original mall: Cottonwood Mall, built 1962. ● Redeveloped to: Cottonwood New Neighbourhood, 2010 - 2014 ● Lead Designer: Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, RTKL, SB Architects, Sasaki Associates, Torti-Gallas and Partners. ● Clients: Private developer. Unlike at Belmar, the developers of Cottonwood New Neighbourhood wish to maintain private ownership over the streets and squares, so they can control their maintenance. However the council and public have been strongly involved in the design process to ensure it is publically supported.1 The design will happen over a short four year period, with most of the mall being demolished aside from the northern anchor store. Because of this, there is a risk here of developing an instant architecture which is lacking in history and identity. Various measures have been taken to avoid this fate. The design emphasis is on the development becoming a dense and real ‘neighbourhood’. To achieve a diverse and more realistic set of buildings, various architects are being involved in the design process. Rather than a single dwelling type, a range of over 500 residential units (inclusive of town homes, single family lots, cottages, condominiums and apartments) are being designed. To distinguish the places identity, visual porosity is utilized in the main street by planning it around specific view corridors. The main street is also bent to create terminated vistas on a central clock tower, and strong retail corners. The scheme is driven by the site’s natural features and view corridors. Instead of keeping people on their feet like in traditional malls, the idea is to design places for people to explore or to sit and enjoy the views of the surrounding mountains. The long frontage will become a tree lined park which centres on a restored creek. The integration of the creek was particularly important. Drainage from the green roofs feed the creek, and strategies are being implemented to ensure that the water is always visible, even when it is low during the dryer months. It is unfortunate that this green corridor cannot be taken directly through the site, as it may now be underused. However, this may not be the case with the strong residential link along its edge.

1

Ibid.


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5 P R O P O S A L : SITE ANALYSIS, PROJECT AIMS AND DESIGN STRETEGIES


43


44

5.1 T H

E

S I T E :

AUCKALND DOWNTOWN SHOPPING CENTRE


45

Figure 5.0 Nature and the City

Image source: http://www.ardmorepilot.com/2013/07/recent-flying-photos.html


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5.1.1 S I T E OVERVIEW

A N A L Y S I S : AND HISTORY

Auckland is famous for being the ‘City of Sails’. The city is surrounded by water that even in the CBD there is beautiful scenery and connection to the sea. The city is continuously evolving to bring people together in the city surrounded by water. In the 19th century, the original shoreline in Auckland has been changed dramatically by reclamation works due to the development of rail connections, and the construction of the Harbour Bridge and motorways in 1950s and 60s.1 The original foreshore along Fanshawe and Customs streets and Beach Road shown in the 1840s plan creates a useful ‘interface’ where the city becomes a waterfront.2 The reclaimed land gave room for comprehensive and visionary development and created an edge (Quay Street), focusing traffic on this urban boulevard and away from the waterfront.3 Situated in a reclaimed land within a ‘hot spot’ of the city, the site of the Downtown Shopping mall focuses on the connection of people to the water space.

1 “Auckland city heritage walks.” Heart of the City accessed April 10,2014, http://www.hotcity.co.nz/aucklandcityheritagewalksshore.pdf

2

Auckland Council, Waterfront plan (2012) accessed March 25, 2014, http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/planspoliciesprojects/ plansstrategies/theaucklandplan/Pages/theaucklandplan.aspx 3

Ibid.


47

Figure 5.1.1.1 The original foreshore plan in 1840 showing Quay Street axis

Land Reclamation

Image by Sir George Grey Special Collection, Auckland Libraries

Original Coastline Victoria Park

Point Britomart

Original coastline Land reclaimation

Auckland council zone of interface

Topography

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500 m

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0

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A distinctive and characteristic topography

Figure 5.1.1.2 Reclaimed land and topography Image by author


48

Figure 5.1.1.3 Little Queen Street in 1960s Image by Auckland Council

Figure 5.1.1.4 Queen Elizabeth Square in 1980s Image by Auckland Council


49

Figure 5.1.1.5 Little Queen Street in 1966 Image by Auckland Council

However during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and in the post-war period, economy inclined due to industrialization. Land use in urban areas was crowded by expansions of profitable commercial and retail buildings and the roads were filled with private mobile transport. The city started to focus on profits and trade and used up larger building footprints. For example, during the 1920’s to 60’s, there used to be a street called Little Queen Street that was placed between the original built form which offered better accessibility and linkage between the waterfront and the city.4 (The plan shows a close-up of the Downtown site before the current 1970’s mall was built.) The engagement of people with the water’s edge and the city centre continued to lose its identity which lead into a replacement of the Little Queen Street to Queen Elizabeth Square. The square holds great potential for publicity but is disconnected to the rest of the city.5

4

(2014)

5

Auckland Council, Downtown-Auckland media presentation slide

Mackay, John Donald. Walking around Town: Planning for Pedestrians in New Zealand.Wellington: Town and Country Planning Division, (Ministry of Works and Development, 1977).


50

34% 16% waiting time

Ferry Terminal Fish Market

Restaurants & nightlife

waiting time

Marine Village

Maritime Museum Ferry Terminals

Marina

waiting time

8

Britomart Train Station

43%

Quee n Stree t

32%

Albe rt St reet

14

Queen Street potential stops at crossings

Public Transit Hub

Tepid Bath

Cust om St reet

Shopping, galleries restaurants & cafĂŠs

Skater Park

waiting time

Victoria Park

Vector Arena

Playground Sky Tower

Victor ia St reet

Victoria Park Marked

Albert Park

Albert Street potential stops at crossings

Shopping & cafĂŠs

University of Auckland Civic Theatre

6

Theatre

Skycity Metro

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Auckland Art Gallery

8

0

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City destinations

Civic centre & entertainment

Auckland University of Technology

Town Hall Test walk route

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Destinations in the city centre Education

Library

Aotea Centre

Percentage of walking time spend on waiting at crossings

Open spaces as destinations Streets & routes as destinations

Myers Park

500 m

City districts as destinations

Playground

Long waiting times for pedestrians

0

Karangahape Road Market

100

200

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Shopping & nightlife

Scattered destinations

0

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N

places in Auckland CBD

ks Princes Wharf

D Auckland

Queens Wharf Captain Cook Wharf

Silo park

Viaduct Harbour

Marsden Wharf

Qua y Stre et

Queen Elizabeth Square

Street Fanshawe

The Cloud

Brito mar t Squa re

Custom s Stre et

Street West

Vulcan

Lane

Freyberg Place

Albert

Victoria

Stre et Stre et

Wyndh am

Hob son

Nelson

Stre et

Stre et

Fort Street

Victoria Park

Waterfront fine dine area

Chancery Lane

Queen Stre potential stops a

Street

Kha Plac rtoum e

Queen

Welles ley Stre et We st

Albert Park

Albert potential stops a

Ferry building

Ponsonby

Coo k Stre et

Parnell Aotea Square

Pub area

Custom potential stops a

Vehicles per day

n spaces form

Northern motorway

18%

Myers Park

158,000

paces spaces

Victoria potential stops a

Western motorway

y centre 2010

The Galleria

123,600

0m

e city centre

Britomart transport centre

Britomart pavilion

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200,700

ace

park

Newmarket Queen Street Retails

Eden Terrace

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etwork

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V Urban open spaces form

18%

215,723 m2

Albert Park

Aotea Square

Custom Street potential stops at crossings Myers Park

Victor ia St reet

Skater Park

waiting time

of all open spaces spaces

Khartoum Place

Albert Street potential stops at crossings

Parnell

Quee n Stree t

32%

Chancery Lane

2

Myers Park

Open space in Auckland City centre 2010

261,910 m

46,185 m2

Open spacesofinwalking the city centre Percentage time spend on waiting at crossings Public urban space Test walk route Public park Parks

Street Queen

Welles ley Stre et We st

43%

Vulcan Lane Freyberg Place

Urban open space

Queen Street potential stops at crossings

Albe rt St reet

Stre et

14

Chancery Lane Kha Plac rtoum e

Ponsonby

Sct. Partricks Square

Victoria Park

Lane

Freyberg Place

Albert

Stre et

Stre et

Nelson

Hob son Street West

F

waiting time

Viaduct Harbour

Fort Street

Victoria

N

34% 16%

Maritime Museum waiting time The Wharf

Marsden Wharf

Brito mar t Squa re

Custom s Stre et

Street Fanshawe

Vulcan

500 m

How could the Downtown shopping centre connect these public destinations so that it forms a centralised network between Publicity in CBDthem? Auckland

Captain Cook Wharf Qua y Stre et

Queen Elizabeth Square

Stre et

400

Queens Wharf

Viaduct Harbour

Wyndh am

300

Public realm

Large traffic volumes with one-way streets

Victoria Park

200

Through site links

Source: Auckland City Council

Princes Wharf

100

Essential central places in Auckland CBD

500 m

0 0

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500 m

Long times fornetwork pedestrians Lackwaiting of open space

Newmarket

Eden Terrace

Scale - bar

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N

Essential central places in Auckland CBD Through site links Public realm

Publicity in CBD Auckland

Figure 5.1.1.6 Urban Site Analysis Image by author

Playground

Vic


For the recent development of urban development and economy made in Auckland, we still face issues from profitmakers. However it did help Auckland’s economy by its huge growth in tourism and retail. As central business districts such as Britomart and City Works Port recently developed, numbers of public transport users raised in Britomart, expecting up to 37,000 commuters per day in 2021.6 Hence the area near Britomart had a big discussion in redevelopments and as a result of the on-going production, there were several changes on the waterfront near the Viaduct basin after Rugby World Cup 2012, for example, the Cloud.7 There has been an increase on high brand shops on the lower part of Queen Street making the area a real tourist attraction. Auckland’s waterfront brings both international and local guests to the ‘heart of the city,’8 where the Britomart transport centre and Fanshawe and Quay Streets meet, bringing in major motorway traffic. As the landmarks with high tourist attractions are scattered throughout the city,9 the waterfront creates a central network to these dispersed areas as it is the starting point of the city, the centre of public transportation. From here, city visitors and locals begin to their wander through the ‘City of Sails.’

6 7

Gibson, The New Zealand Herald. ”Auckland City attractions.” Heart of the City, accessed March 25, 2014, http://www.heartofthecity.co.nz/things-to-do 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid

Figure 5.1.1.7 Waiting on traffic lights to Queen Street Image by Peter Guthrie

51


52

Weak conditions of civic life in Auckland CBD A disconnected waterfront

A car dominated city

N

Challenge

Challenge

volumes on Quay Street comprisis both a physical and mental barrier between the harbour and the city centre. Most walking links from the city centre to the waterfront are of poor pedestrian quality. There is also a lack of a continuous public routes along the water´s edge.

its conclusive mark on Auckland. A large scaled street layout dominates the city centre accommodating a high number of cars and putting pedestrians under pressure. Interestingly, Consequences

Consequences accessibility issues.

Lack of open space network

A high city

Challenge The open spaces in Auckland are scattered throughout the

Challenge Substantial parts of the city centre are dominated by

open space network.

Consequences A high-rise city demands more service in terms of infrastructure and thus puts a high pressure on the local

Consequences navigate in the city centre, hence not encouraging people to walk to get about.

parking. Tall buildings also tend to create a poor microclimate at ground level with wind problems and shadow in many streets most of the day.

An incomplete pedestrian network

Challenge Existing and planned pedestrian areas and streets of high quality in the city centre are improving selected connections but they are not included in a coherent network.

Consequences The overall pedestrian environment is of poor quality and therefore does not encourage people to walk across the city centre.

Figure 5.1.1.8 Weak conditions in Auckland CBD Image by author


53

The weakness of Auckland CBD in general terms of urban design is that there lack of open space and its network. The reclamation of land was to enhance the publicity and flow of pedestrians that connects the waterfront. The city is dominated by the high rise commercial buildings which creates a barrier to the waterfront. The city is dominated by cars creating high flows of traffic which challenges the pedestrian to access particular destinations. The city needs to be dominated by people. Both Customs and Quay Streets are heavy in traffic because of motorways that limits the people to cross over the streets. The traffic of public transport also interrupts the pedestrian who walk across from Britomart transport station. The lower Queen Street is a core area of bus stops that impedes foot traffic. Pedestrian traffic is slowed due to undesirable waiting times at traffic lights, lowering the experience of walking in the city.


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5.1.2 S I T P

R

E O

A N A L Y S I S : B

L

E

M

S


55

Figure 5.1.2.1 Existing Downtown Shopping Centre with facade covered with Billboards Image source: http://www.bostondigital.co.nz/static/images/billboard-dove.jpg


56

Figure 5.1.2.2 The Site Image source: Google Earth


57

Downtown Shopping Centre is set near the waterfront port which is attached with two office towers- Zurich House and HSBC building – creating a high density mixed used zone. Upon Queen Street near the large transport hub, Britomart Transport Centre is the perfect example of location is everything. ‘If you build it, they will come’ is no longer true. If you build a mall or a shop in the wrong location, you’ll be out of business before you know it.”10 The centre had retail visits with around 5.8 million customers per year in 2005. The mall has been called “the most underperforming shopping centre in New Zealand. Lying in the middle of a much more densely built up CBD and being considered underdeveloped with only three stories above ground, various other plans for the site have been mooted in recent years.”11 The centre is designed poorly with its tacky displays, poor retail mix, bad placement of entrances, awkward configuration and extreme-sized billboards that shell the entire facade, which have also faced problems with the local Council12.

10 Kelver, Ann De. Experience shopping (Tielt: Lannoo Publishers, 2008), 128. 11 Gibson, A. Options for Downtown mall wide open. (Auckland: The New Zealand Herald, 2007). 12

The Bob Dey Property Report. Councillors stand fast against

more downtown signage. (2005, 09 20), accessed March 10, 2014, http://www.propbd.co.nz/councillors-stand-fast-against-more-downtownsignage/


58

Figure 5.1.2.3 Buses surrounding the site Image by author


59

Figure 5.1.2.4

Traffic orientated road: Quay Street, disconnecting waterfront and the city

Image by author


60

Figure 5.1.2.5 Queen Elizabeth Square with pigeons Image by author

Figure 5.1.2.6 Seating placement exposed out on the corridor Image by author


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The mall has a typical layout that is an introverted aggregation of shops with seat placements exposed out in the open corridor or down strange alleyways towards elevators and service ways. The main entrance is facing to Queen Elizabeth Square and Britomart Transport Centre which is not functioning as a main entry due to the more popular side entrances on the corners along Custom Street. ‘The retail mix appears to consist of extreme thrift marketing displays and high-end stores with the proximity being far too close to each other creates a lack of threshold or transition between the two markets.’13 The configuration is problematic as there is nothing working together, elements are merged into a cluttered and distressful setting. To solve the problem, the design needs to be reconfigured to respond better to the pedestrian flows of the site and the need for more public or semi-public open spaces reconnecting the different parts of the city. Also, the thesis will have configurations that are simplified and modernised. First of all, it will be achieved by removing the tacky display and signage and aesthetically unpleasant displays which are thrown in your face in every area of the stores you reach. Secondly, it will address the issues of accessibility and retail mix with anchors. And lastly, offering a vitalising or relaxing environment for people. The development of civic locations like Queen Elizabeth Square have a significant influence to economic conditions. As spaces for the public are developed, the land value of properties increases. Many companies are attracted to invest on good locations with well-designed and well-managed public places regarding their ability to attract more customers. Infact, Queen Elizabeth Square has the potential to be a well-managed public space. At the moment it is failing as a seductive public space. This place, located at the “main” entrance, is supposed to have the most revitalising sense movement with sociable experiences throughout the entire mall. However the reality is that there are more pigeons than humans. The existence of good public places become important as business and marketing tools as they are start to compete with one another. Public space is also considered to have an effect on commercial trading. It also raises the price of the property and the levels of investment.

13 Blue, Zachary. P(a)lace of consumption. (Auckland: Victoria University, 2012).


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Additionally, a good public space can intrigue tourists. The specifically Queen Elizabeth square may increase open space network to the public, however it has been criticized as a form of disjunction. It does not connect the waterfront and the city as streets do. In the Downtown Framework proposed by the Auckland Council in September 2014, the square is to be replaced by a narrow laneway for maximising the flow of pedestrian movement.14 The council stated that there is a possibility of sale of public space at Queen Elizabeth Square for developers to build a third tower. “Public space could be swapped for lane and cash from shopping centre developers.”15 However the city lacks public connections and the Auckland Council’s idea of selling the square to Precincts LTD will only create a sharp barrier of high-rise private buildings. This is only beneficial to the property landlord but not pedestrians. This thesis argues as per the design development that the public square should remain but it should be developed with a continuous flow.

14 Auckland Council, Downtown Framework (September 11, 2014) accessed November 10, 2014, http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/ planspoliciesprojects/CouncilProjects/citycentretransformation/Pages/ Downtown.aspx 15 Orsman, Benard. “New Property Plan for Downtown.” The New Zealand Herald (May 9, 2014)


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Figure 5.1.2.7 Looking down on Queen Elizabeth Square from the mall Image by author


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Figure 5.1.2.8 Pedestrian from Queen Street and Custom Street junction Image by author


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5.1.3 SITE ANALYSIS: URBAN DESIGN ASPECTS

Accessibility 1: pedestrian axis + waterfront axis Despite the great location of the mall, the accessibility impacts on the foot traffic of pedestrians. It is paramount that the mall has a stable flow of movement for future success. The research on the existing CBD grids suggests where the essential accessibility points should be. The city is comprised of a series of east-west streets with laneway and waterfront stitches. Quay Street, parallel to the waterfront creates a high quality promenade at the harbours’ edge for both traffic vehicular and pedestrians. In the Auckland Council’s Masterplan 2012, it establishes Quay Street as an east-west pedestrian boulevard that reunites the waterfront and the city. One block behind, there is parallel axis that prioritises pedestrian movement from Scene Lane to Britomart train station. The Scene Lane connects to a pedestrian axis called Te Ara Tahuhu walkway. The walkway has two types of atmospheric qualities as one is an arcade that the Westpac Building sits on that continues with an outdoor lane way that lays between successful anchoring shops and restaurants (Britomart Pavilion). This pedestrian axis leads into Britomart train station and is blocked by the shopping mall. The pedestrian axis generates another promenade for retail which has two public squares on the way for a pause. There is potential for this axis to be developed into a characteristic thoroughfare of different typologies of retail and public spaces.


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WATERFRONT PEDESTRIAN AXIS

PEDESTRIANISATIO FROM THE CITY CO

TE ARA TAHUHU PED

Pedestrian axis Pedestrian axis Pedestrian axis

Anchor buildings Anchor buildings Anchor buildings

N

Scale 1

Privately O Public Spa

Shared-sp Pedestria

Sea

(PWC+DT Mall) Sky Bridge

Continuous flow of pedestrian axis

(Britomart Pavilion) Laneway

(TE ARA TAHUHU) Walkway Arcade

Figure 5.1.3.1 Pedestrian axis from Te Ara Tahuhu walkway Image by author

KEY


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The site of the current Downtown Shopping mall also interrupts the connection between the waterfront and Queen Street. The existing building footprint is taking over most of its area to promote pedestrian activity or pass through into shortcuts to the ports. In the past, Little Queen Street served well as an artery to the waterfront branches to individual shops. This link will be readdressed in the design as people want to feel the salty breeze of the waterfront. These invigorating amenities are inevitable linking necessities for the site. The design should generate a mixed-used destination that will create a pedestrian-friendly retail environment where it also stitches with the waterfront.


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Ped

est

rian

Axi

s

Connections must be made

Figure 5.1.3.2 Seating placement exposed out on the corridor Image by author

Scale 1:50000

Wat erfro

nt A x

is

ine

stl

a

ric

sto

Hi

oa lC

Historical

Coastline

Figure 5.1.3.3 Seating placement exposed out on the corridor Image by author

Existing pedestr axis


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Figure 5.1.3.4 Long queue for bus infront of the mall Image by author


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Transport and pedestrian 1,100 2,700

People on the ferry

Left graph: Comparison of number of people and mode of access to the city centre at key entry points in the morning peak period

17,700

“Britomart Transport Centre provide a high quality commuter environment.”

People in buses

22,100

People in cars

141 118

2010

2009

2005

Inner city area 1-2 km 2

Melbourne

23 Copenhagen

Right graph: Comparison of parking spaces per hectare with other cities +street parking

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Christchurch

“Your car is welcomed in Auckland”

Auckland

Source: Auckland City Council

150

Sydney

People in trains

2007

2004

Inner city area 2-3 km 2

“Striking how low the level of pedestrian are compared to other main streets around the world” Pedestrian volumes from 8 am - 12-am during:

Queen Street facts: From October 2007 to October 2008:

7000

Right graph: Weekday Below graph: Saturday

6102

3,500 m2

6000

on Queen Street

extra pavement space

5000

5000

+ 31%

4500 4122

4116

increase in weekday pedestrian activity

3816

4000

4000

+ 25%

3498 3174 2826

3000

3000

increase in weekend footfall Queen Street facts: From 2002-2009:

2814 2616

2508

1866

2016

2088

1986 1998

1494

1386 1056 1098

1050

1146

1000

1098 762

636

0 8-9

9-10

10-11 11-12

12-1

am

1-2

2-3

3-4

4-5

Time on Saturday

5-6

6-7

7-8

pm

8-9

9-10

10-11 11-12

Pedestrians per hour

Pedestrians per hour

2058 1872

2000

– 47%

2000 1524

decrease in pedestrian injuries per year

1296 1314 816

1000

894

– 40%

decrease in waiting time at intersections

0 8-9

9-10

10-11 11-12

am

12-1

1-2

2-3

Time

on Weekday

3-4

4-5

5-6

6-7

7-8

8-9

9-10

10-11 11-12

Source: Auckland City Council

pm

Figure 5.1.3.5 Transport and foot traffic Image by author


73

Accessibility 2: transport hub- The Inner city rail proposal Due to the site of the current Downtown Shopping mall being within the main a transport hub of the city, it is dominated by traffic. The site is surrounded by transport stations such as the Britomart train station, numerous bus stops aligning Lower Queen Street, Ferry ports on Quay Street as well as a large number of vehicles on Quay Street and Custom Street. The downside of this is that the pedestrian flow is disrupted by the various means of transportation, thus leaving the site isolated. The phrase from Auckland Council, ‘your car is welcomed in Auckland’ is not a good sign for pedestrians. There are still more cars than the sum up of three public transports as the graph shows 1 to 3 ratio between private car and public transport users. So the council proposed a new transport system to the least form of transport which is used in Auckland to resolve the dispute of cars ruling the main city streets.


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Figure 5.1.3.6 Concept alignment of CRL underground route Image by Auckland Council and AT


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Figure 5.1.3.7 Concept alignment of CRL Image by Auckland Council and AT

In April 2014, the Auckland Council has proposed a new inner city rail from Britomart that goes under the site. The rail tracks will have a 90 degree turn which will run under Albert Street connecting to the next proposed station, Aotea Station. Precinct Properties want to develop the Downtown Mall site and they have already agreed to build the tunnel under the site at the same time, this saved AT from having to purchase the whole site.16 It makes complete sense to then also connect that part of the tunnel to Britomart and to get it at least under the Customs St/Albert St intersection. The site becomes more connected to transport users and builds more depth into the site. The question of manipulating the rail is that if it will be exposed or concealed underground? This thesis, in the proposed design will further explore and integrate the transport hub, so that it could help link with underground passages that underground railway stations usually possess.

16 Lowrie, Matt. “Getting on with the CRL.� Transport blog (April 14, 2014), Accessed June 4, 2014. http://transportblog. co.nz/2014/04/14/getting-on-with-the-crl


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5.2

D E S I G N A I M A N D S T R A T E G I E S


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Figure 5.2.1 Daily Practices- Taking photos of icecream Image by author


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5.2.1 T H URBAN

E

A

EVERYDAY

I

M

:

PRACTICES

Before going into strategies of regenerating a shopping mall, there is an essential factor that must be addressed: urban everyday practices. The daily social activities held in urban public spaces could be key factor of reproducing a privatised realm of the mall into a public retail place. As derived in the historical development of public retail space in chapter 1, retail spaces being public holds a crucial part of everyday urban life. People gain more value and experience by sharing the resource they have in the public space.1 People become attached to the existence of public space in urban areas as they encounter its significance in their daily activities.

1 Mean, Melissa & Tims, Charlie. People make places: Growing the public life of cities. (Domus, September 2005)


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Figure 5.2.1.1 Everyday Life Would be Cooler With Sound Effects Image source: http://society6.com/product/everyday-life-would-be-cooler-with-sound-effects_print?tag=threadless#1=45


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5.2.1.1 E

V

E

R

Y

D

A

Y

The term ‘everyday’ speaks to an element of ordinary human experience and conveys multiple meanings. At a commonsense level, the ‘everyday’ describes the lived experience shared by urban residents, the banal and ordinary routines we know all too well- commuting, working, relaxing, moving through city streets and sidewalks, shopping, buying, eating , running errands.1 The everyday city has rarely been the focus of attention for architects or urban designers, despite the fact that an amazing number of social, spatial, and aesthetic meanings can be found in the repeated activities and conditions that constitute our daily, weekly and yearly routines. The urban city utterly reveals a fabric of space and time defined by a complex realm of social practices - a conjuncture of accidents, desires and habits

1 Crawford, Margaret. Everyday Urbanism, (The Monacelli Press; Expanded Ed edition December 23, 2008)


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5.2.1.2 T H

E

COMPLICITY:

ANCHORS AND CONNECTORS; OBJECTS AND FIELDS; INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE Michel de Certeau, who wrote Practices of everyday life, argued that temporality is as significant as spatiality in everyday life. De Certeau drew a distinction between two modes of operation: strategies based on fixed place and tactics based on time. Strategies are established based on ‘proper’ place whereas tactics are ways of operating which depends on time. Tactics lack borders so they rely on proper strategic place arrangements so that they can move and change according to the organisation of space. In spaces of consumption we are able to notify these two modes of operation. Individual shops are located in a strategic manner and they operate from by manipulating people’s patterns of movements. This thesis proposes that one can visualise the sets of urban activities as tactics, conceived in Stan Allen’s terms as fields and conditions. In Allen’s Points + Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City in 1999, the ‘line’ is defined as the delineation of spaces in between which becomes objectified and creates a new space of flow. And the ‘points’ known as Anchors and connectors represents attraction and movement within urbanities which reoccupies the space by extending and inserting an attractor system of diffusion and fields of complicity. (Fig. 5.2.1.2.1) “Field configurations are loosely bound aggregates characterized by porosity and local interconnectivity.”1 Field conditions move from the one towards the many, from individuals to collectives, from objects to field. It has the ability to unify the diverse elements while respective of each identity, described as a ‘propagation space of effects’ which is characterised through the porosity and local interconnectivity within the public space. The field configuration is seen in the ‘Inversion’ of the proposed redevelopment of the shopping mall. Allen conveys the field in terms of things between spaces: “Form matters, but not so

1 Stan Allen, Points + lines : diagrams and projects for the city, 1st ed. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 17.


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Figure 5.2.1.2.1 Stan Allen’s Field Conditions Image source: http://magicarpets.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/allen-field.jpg


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Figure 5.2.1.2.2 Stan Allen’s Spaces in Between and the flow of movement Image source: http://predmet.fa.uni-lj.si/siwinds/s2/u4/su4/img/s2_u4_su4_p3_01.gif


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much the form of things as the form between things.”2 Neither of the function nor the form will be abandoned in the process

themselves but forms between the event and structure”3

Clusters of shops = Object

like between anchors

Field = New object

Figure 5.2.1.2.3

Clusters of retails as object becomes field. From object to field. From field to object Image by author

In Spaces of consumption, the author Steven Miles presents the spaces for consumption as a collection of meeting points between the individual and collective which implements 4 Consumption provides the bridge between the communal and individual agents.5 Anchors are represented as points of attraction points which also act as dispersion points between one anchor to another. Anchors and connectors show attractions and singular building or urbanity which occupied the space by extending and inserting attractor 6 In the realm of contemporary society, the space of consumption can be society which project the society as the focal point for a communal space of social encounters – a “city of complicity.”

2 3

Ibid.

Stan Allen, Points + lines : diagrams and projects for the city, 1st ed. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), p17.

4

Steve Miles, Spaces for consumption, 1st ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2010), 7.

5 6

Ibid. Ibid. p3


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Figure 5.2.1.3 Collages of places in the city Images by author


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5.2.1.3 PLACES I N THE C

I

T

Y

The urban space of everyday practices is located in between clearly defined and physically identifiable realms as the home and the office, being the connective tissue that binds daily activities together. In-between spaces, such as streets and arcades, are zones of social transition and have the potential for generating new social engagements, creative practices and particularly imagination.1 There is a separation between the two main environments of people’s productive and re-productive life. As prioritised by the time we spend most in, the home, is the first place and work as the second place, and in between these spaces there is a third place, which becomes a nexus. The term “Third Place” was introduced by sociologist Ray Oldenburg2 who elaborated: Though [third space] a radically different kind of setting for a home, the third place is remarkably similar to a good home in the psychological comfort and support that it extends …the heart of a community’s social vitality, the grassroots.

1 2

Victor Turner’s concept of liminality, “betwixt and between”

Oldenburg, Ray, The Great Good Place, (New York: Marlowe & Company, 1991)


88

Third place hosts regular activities where anyone can come and connect: where there is civil society, democracy, civic engagement; establishing feelings of a sense of place. These third spaces are ‘anchors’ of community life and facilitate more creative interaction. In the urban notion of anchors, the interactive community is mainly seen in the practice of shopping. As we always consume commodities that is either small as a bus ticket or as big as a car, it has become a continuous routine and a civic engagement as we have to interact with strangers even if it is a service staff. It has become a place for hobby that is part of our daily lives and a connection where it provide spaces for gathering especially in urban places where there are less public spaces. Shopping has become an experience that is an integral part of our desire for connectivity. The interaction between the seller and consumer. Nowadays consumers are not rational decision makers who base their purchasing decisions on functional relationships with the products they purchase. While shopping, we want to ‘feel’, ‘relate’, ‘sense’, and ‘act’.7 As we all yearn for a better quality of life, the spaces of consumption we have now maximise the quality of experience. “‘Experience destinations’ are the places where the generation that want it all can gather in informal meeting places.”8 In the past, what we were looking for is a genuine third place where people come together, but now we want more. Congregation combining rich experiences. The experience destinations are formed with collections of spaces of anchors. The anchor is defined as an attraction acting as a pulling force exerted by a shop. The space of anchors are frequently entertainment facilities and leisure areas, for instance cinemas and open cafes, which are catalysts of everyday practices. Design engaging with everyday space must start with an understanding of the life that takes place there. The typical mall space, pragmatically designed, has little or none to do with real human impulses but faking it as so as mentioned in chapter 3. The problem of modern urban spaces is there are no sense of real life ‘of’ the city and ‘in’ the city- to make a work of life. 9

7 8 9

Ann De Kelver, Experience shopping p16 Ibid, 17. Raymond Ledrut “speech and the silence of the City,” in the city and the sign: an introduction to urban semiotics, ed. Mark Gottdeiner and Alexandros Langopoulos (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 133.


89


90

5.2.1.4 FROM NON-PLACES TO ANTHROPOLOGICAL SPACES The city is recognised as a place to work and a place to be productive and efficient. There is no sense of relaxation or cosiness where we can find these qualities easily in suburban areas. The city, a place of meeting and exchange for economic reasons; can be defined as non-places. The French Anthropologist, Marc Augé portrays the word ‘Empirical non-places’ meaning spaces of circulation, consumption and communication where there is less significance towards human activity. Whereas an ‘Anthropological place’ is defined as any space which inscribes social bond or collective history can be seen.10 Nowadays civic interactions through circulation and consumption is hard to see in urban spaces like a mall. It has pseudo-communal activity however it only happens with small demographic groups of when the mall creates an event . Also the unprecedented extension of space of circulation, consumption and communication corresponds to the phenomenon we identify today as “globalisation”. This extension has important anthropological consequences, because individual and collective identity is always constructed in relation to and in negotiation with otherness.11 The same brands, mall layouts, “… the same hotel chains, the same television networks are cinched tightly round the globe, so that we feel constrained by uniformity, by universal sameness, and to cross international borders bring no more profound variety than is found walking between theatres on Broadway or rides at Disneyland”12.

Alexandros Langopoulos (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 133. 10 Augé, Marc, Non-places, (London ; NY : Verso 2008). 2nd English language ed.. 6. 11 Ibid, 7. 12 Ibid, 10.


91

Figure 5.2.1.4.1 Universal sameness of commodities due to globalisation Image source: http://www.missquinn.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/World_Vission_Cartoon.jpg


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Figure 5.2.1.4.2 George Ritzer’s idea of prosumption and mcdonaldization Image source: http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/media_pix/0761986286_01_LZZZZZZZ.jpg


93

Due to this realm of globalisation, people are pushed to do things in the phenomenon called McDonaldization. McDonaldization is a term by a George Ritzer, American sociologist, which is the process of rationalization where the input of traditional or illogical rules must be consistent to be calculable, efficient, predictable and controlled.13 One of the fundamental aspects of McDonaldization is that almost any task can be rationalised.14 McDonaldization breaks down to smallest task possible and then are rationalised so that it could calculate the single most efficient way to complete the task. It is to make the users to be efficient where people can use the same method every time to produce a desired outcome. Due to this phenomenon consumers are becoming unpaid employees. We are doing labour that is traditionally performed by the company such as when we dine our food at our table and carry trash to the bin after consumption. We are in a state of ‘prosumption’ which involves both being a producer and a consumer rather than focusing on either one or the other. In the contemporary society where we are surrounded by technology, we are very ‘prosumptional’. A prime example is when we are on Youtube, Facebook or Snapchat, we produce physical labour and consume it. The company is not involved with the context at all. As consumers, we should not be tricked to produce labour; not be seduced by calculability where we people are easily baited by quantifiable rather than subjective matter; familiarised by uniformity with standardised outcomes or products; and be controlled. If spaces of consumption are to be an ‘anthropological space’, both the space and consumers must differentiate themselves from being an isolated island of control and universal sameness. It must reinvent itself as it used to be in the past, where all social, commercial and political elements existed in an architecture bounded and intertwined with an experience of a place.

13 George Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society - An Investigation into the hanging Character of Contemporary Social Life. (Pine Forge Press. Revised edition published 1996.) 14

Ibid.


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5.2.1.5 ACTORS AND NETWORKS IN RETAIL PRECINCT


95

Figure 5.2.1.5.1 Praxis in Auckland CBD Image by author


96

Methodology: To design an enticing third space, research of the demographics is essential. As the users are usually limited due to its characteristics of a specific area and all commodities and structures are built as who the target market is. This study will identify who are the actors of retail precincts in Auckland and what are their conflicts and alliances in terms of using the spaces. In summary of the research of urban practices, it is crucial that the third space has to be an ‘anthropological space’ where there is uniqueness. Due to the mall being a realm of manipulation, it has no real sense of life. To maximise the mall space with everyday activities it needs to be an oasis in the city where it can provide a factors of real public space: social, economic and political. For an appreciation of the most significant places of the Auckland retail landscape, this study looked at the main retail precincts: existing downtown mall, Arts, Britomart, City West, High Street, K-Road, Queen Street, Victoria Street and Waterfront. In the process of observation of the nine precincts of retail, the most eye-catching moments were the different praxis of the users’ daily routines. The analysis will provide a list of different activities that Aucklanders do and by inserting spaces for these different activities, it will form an anchor point. A “city consists of things like material and immaterial are strongly interconnected, setting in activity of the entire urban experience. The level of conviviality and liveliness of a city reflects how civilized the city is.”15 The practices of everyday life works as ‘fields’ in Stan Allen’s terms and due to the flow fields, the mall, as expressed as a mini-city or town, will be carefully structured.

15

Gehl, Jan. Cities for people. (Washington, DC: Island press, 2010).


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Figure 5.2.1.5.2 Nine retail precincts in Auckland CBD Image by author


98

Stationary activity - Weekday Low diversity of activities on a weekday

169

There is a very low diversity of activities taking place in the inner-city streets and squares.

54

Stationary activities on a weekday People sitting on public benches: People sitting at outdoor cafes: People standing: People sitting on secondary seating: Chil dre n p l ay in g: Physical activities:

The Quay Street Wharf

The Viaduct Harbour

2,720 activities registered in Auckland’s City

30% 25% 12% 22% 1% 4%

38

Britomart Square

27 36

St. Patricks Square 46 Vulcan Lane22

31 Victoria Park

Freyberg PlaceChancery Street 140 15 Khartoum Place

Physical activities

Sitting on folding chairs

Cultural activities

Secondary seating

Albert Park

Commercial activities

Sitting on café chairs

Children playing

Sitting on benches

20

Lying down

Waiting for transport

Myers Park

During the period between 10 am and 10 pm

Standing

N

0

100

200

300

400

500 m

245

70

The Quay Street Wharf

213

Stationary activity - Saturday

The Viaduct Harbour

The inner city does not invite people to stay

St. Patricks Square

36 Britomart Square

6 22

People are stopping to rest in the city squares during the weekday, but at other times of the week and weekend, there is no sets of attractions that people could spend time to enjoy.

Freyberg Chancery Street Place

“A broken waterfront promenade”

9 Khartoum Place

Stationary activities on a Saturday 17% 27% 23% 5% 6% 12%

17 Myers Park

Britomart Square

The Quay Street Wharf 400

200 400

weekday

weekday

305activities

147activities

300

100 300

66

52

60

50

36

41

49

43 21

13

18

3

200/0 200

200/0 200

95

100

62

52 15

22

0 10

12

am

2

4

Time

6

pm

8

Number of persons

351activities

105

saturday

135

saturday Number of persons

31 Albert Park

3,110 activities registered in Auckland’s City centre. People sitting on public benches: People sitting at outdoor cafes: People standing: People sitting on secondary seating: Children playing: Physical activities:

35

Vulcan Lane14

Victoria Park

287activities

100

34

49 26

24

19

0 10

12

am

Time

2

pm

4

6

8


99

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS: The research is done on the basis of people doing urban practices in eleven public spaces Auckland CBD. First I visited nine retail precincts that are part of public spaces. The disappointing factor is that the city lacks diversity in social activities. In the eleven public spaces; such as Albert Park, Britomart Square, Chancery Street, Freyberg Place, Khartoum Place, Myers Park, St. Patricks Square, Quay Street Wharf, Viaduct Harbour and Victoria Park; people do not feel invited to stay as some of the spaces are fragmented and are not connected to the surrounded context so that there is nothing to do. The main activities we see on both weekdays and Saturday are people sitting on public benches or sitting at outdoor cafes. Though these activities are important for the spaces they are fairly mundane which lacks attraction and vitality. Though some of the practices are not seen regularly in these retail precincts, the selection of various types of practices that have more public and anchoring values. They are then grouped into categories of practices to show what social, spatial and environmental needs are: ● ● ● ●

Audience Seeker: People who needs attention such as Market Seller, Beggar, Performer, Information helper, Fast food Van, Busker Daily Doers: people who do their daily routines such as Reader, Smoker, Eater, Stroller and Transport User/ waiter Lifestylers: people who enjoys certain modes of living such as Market Goer, Drinker, Shopper, Photographer, Picnic Enthusiast, Clubber. Activist: people who de-stress from exercise or sport such as Cyclist, Skateboarder, Dog-walker, Runner

The mapping of groups of practice-doers will assist to identify and locate different user requirements. This allows to investigate what social and environmental aspects that urban retail users in Auckland are looking for as well as their conflicts and alliances due to different desires and needs. The diagram will explain this thoroughly and serve as the base in working strategically. The definition of nodes of individual practices and their networks will support the design of active places for social, economic exchanges and recreational transactions. Figure 5.2.1.5.3 Stationary activity in public areas of retail precincts Image by author


100

Practices of everyday life in 9 precedents in Auckland Central

seating

exposed to elements

lighting

loud noise

unpopulated

toilet

table

fresh air

soft ground

moderate noise

populated

car park

nature

climate control

hard ground

no or little noise

sheltered

Database of user types observed in 9 precincts in Auckland, their perceived desires and requirements of space

Market Seller

Picnic enthusiast

Transport User

Cyclist/Skateboarder

A convenient space to sell goods

An outdoor place where there is nature and fresh air

A shelteres place to wait for transport

jectsA splace to ride and socialise

Market Goer

Reader

Busker

Dog Walker

An easy way to exchange and buy goods

A quiet and secluded space.

A space to play music where poeple will pay for

A place to throw balls or sticks and put away away dog poos

Drinker

Smoker

Stroller

A unpopulated and secluded space that has rubbish bins near by

Runner

A place to socialise and sheltered

A place to stop and visit or a walkway that has good views

A place with fresh air and nature with smooth ground condition

Eater

Information Helper

Photographer

Performer

A place to eat by themselves or with others

A place where there is lot of people and tourists

A place of memory or landmark

An open space where it is populated

Fast Food Van

Out of Town Shopper

Beggar

Night Sporter

A space to park near lots of people.

A secure place to park whilst shopping and place to rest legs inbetween shopping.

A shelter and where there are lots of people to give money

An enclosed space to dance and drink

Figure 5.2.1.5.4 Groups of people doing practices of daily routine Image by author


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5.2.1.5 ACTORS AND NETWORKS IN RETAIL PRECINCT Urban design often pursues clear-cut instrumental goals such as comfort, practicality, and order. But the scope of everyday life in urban spaces is never completely subordinated to the achievement of predefined, rational objectives. The spaces and activities placed can provide risk, change, disorder or spontaneity however they can also offer a richness of experiences and possibilities for action. People’s needs are expressed through their playful behaviour in urban public spaces where the density and diversity of city life inevitably leads to tensions and contradictions between rational social organisation and people’s desires. The playful behaviour thrives on various forms of discipline, exploitation and spectacle which concentrate attention on practices. The essential factor of the idea of public space has a vague concept of amenity. Having a quality of amenity sometimes means more than serving predetermined and practical functions in civic spaces. Its design provides potential for expanding people’s experience and their capacities.


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Figure 5.2.1.5.5 & 5.2.1.5.6 Conflicts and Aliences diagrams Image source: http://studiotwo.wordpress.com/category/productive-agonistic-public-space/page/3/


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Figure 5.2.2 The play in display of commodities from ‘IKEA FESTIVAL 2000’ Image source: http://www.carlkleiner.com


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T

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5.2.2 S T R A T E G Y

HOW TO REINTERPRET THE PLAY INTO THE SITE


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Throughout this thesis, key elements such as every day; activity; action; practice; social; life are crucial for public space and an important part of daily routine. Public space opens up the quality of people’s lives. The streets, the parks, the playgrounds that we encounter everyday offer the possibility for the people to experience the communal activities, movement, communication, relaxation, etc. Stephan Carr mentions that public space is expected to provide satisfaction for people, promote human rights, and develop cultural meaning.1 The existence of public space has become more privatized and under such great control that the freedom and rights of the society are limited.2 However we do not see or feel this in the shopping malls of today. Although it is considered as a public destination, the shopping mall is a commercially driven privatised space, but it will not function without a measure of social activity to entice customers. From the historical research, markets that was held in public plazas and town squares, and arcades and streets have provided the public realm for people to encounter different people often to meet and ‘watch other people’. Though the malls now are privatised, they try to run social activities but still are transcended by social events that take place. The tight control of a privatised interior has propensity to discourage social activity.

1

Carr, Stephen. Public Space. (England: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 2 Ibid.


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The reinvention of the mall typology as proposed in this thesis, will not only employ multiple attractors, as is evident in today’s malls, like anchoring shops and food courts but will also manipulated types of retails and entertainments, which will be placed strategically introducing unparalleled services with mixed use of configurations of shopping types and programs. The dispersion link of each anchor shop is to be manipulated so that the minor shops can be easily located in places along public pathways and squares which will generate a system that promotes ease of flux of movement and continuity of practices. This manipulation of the structured system of public space will lead the consumers into long pathways and stopping points of private retail areas to maximize impulse consumption, allowing the users to experience a mixture of fragments of various eccentric retail forms integrated into the public realm. It will also establish the modes of the commercial and communal identities within the network and the ability to maintain the orientation and flow of movements from one space to another. This method of revitalisation of the mall will enlighten the urban public life impulse by social activities. It will create more publicity in privatised shopping spaces by creating and opening up permeable networks into the urban environment. And to do so the proposed design will refer to both the qualities of the previous shopping typologies illustrated earlier in the thesis and the goals that the Auckland Council sought to achieve.


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The Downtown Shopping Centre is the only shopping mall in the Auckland CBD, but consumers will have no reason to revisit if there is no social experience. If there is no extra experience that consumers can feel than to select an item, purchase it and move out or go to the next store, they will just shop at Queen Street or enjoy internet-shopping. If the only reason people come to a mall is to shop then it has failed to become a truly public destination. The civic experience of being social has become the essential pulling factor for the public. The essential factor of the idea of civic experience in public space has a vague concept of amenity. Having quality of convenience and pleasure sometimes means more than serving predetermined and practical functions in civic spaces. Its design provides potential for expanding people’s experiences and their capacities. According to Stephan Carr who wrote, Public space, public space should be reactive to the needs of the people who primarily seek for comfort, relaxation, active, and passive engagement, and discovery. 3 Public spaces offer many benefits: the good feeling from being part of a busy street scene; the relaxation gained of quiet time spent on a park bench; places where people can exchange and learn their different culture and identities; opportunities for social interaction regardless of gender, age religion, etc. These experiences are mostly seen in shopping malls but the only difference is that it is controlled. All have important benefits and helps to create local attachments, which are at the heart of a sense of community.4 Public space should become an oasis to provide leisure for its users as an escape place from the boring daily routines from their first and second places. For a public space to be meaningful, Carr mentioned it should provide the possibility of people to build connections with the place and their personal life.5

3 Carr, S.; Francis, M.; Rivlin, L.G.; Stone, A.M. Public Space. (New

York: Cambridge University Press. 1992) 4 Worpole, Ken. & Knox, Katharine. The Social Value of Public Spaces (York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2007). 5 Ibid.


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The scope of the regeneration of the mall is to a break away from the busy and mundane urban routines and obligations so as to become a means of escape and relaxation. The play comes in where all the practices could interact, enriching the civic life and atmosphere to create some publicity in the private space of a mall. By adapting traditional public space structures to form a new type of mall will become the heart of a community that provides informal gathering places where people can discuss, make friends, resolve problems, etc. The method of play will move away from the down-falling conventional mall layouts so as to explore a mall that works with the needs and desires of the local demographics. For a mall to have these public qualities filled with social practices, the design strategy is to play with the notion of inversion. This is to be used in the setting of individual retail shops: exploring different heights, interlocking volumes, porous spaces and boundaries.


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5.2.2.1 INSIDE/OUTSIDE INVERSION: VILLAGE INSIDE A BUILDING

Figure 5.2.2.1.1 Luigi Moretti Image source: https://azurebumble.wordpress.com/ 2011/10/12/luigi-moretti-architecture/

In the architecture of Aires Mateus one can see their use of ‘solid space’ to form a new inhabitable space. Juan Cortes describes Bruno Zevi’s idea that space is the protagonist of architecture which was developed from Luigi Moretti’s models where hollow spaces were represented as solids, cast from the interior walls, using the inner surface as a mould. (Fig. 5.2.2.1.1) Interior space is defined as a positive (figure) with the walls act as a negative (ground). Louis Kahn further develops this through the innovation of “hollow structure: a structure that contains space”.6 Cortes notes that Colin Rowe’s work in Collage City discusses the emphasis on negative space, voids of public spaces within the solids of the built urban environment, like those indicated in the Nolli map of Rome. (Fig. 5.2.2.1.2)

6 Cortes, Juan Antonio. “Building the Mould of Space: Concept and Experience of Space in the Architecture of Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus.” El Croquis, Issue 154 (March 7, 2011), 23


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Figure 5.2.2.1.2 Noli Plan Image source: http://cooltownstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/nolli_central.gif


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House in Alentejo Coast, Portugal, Aires Mateus uses inversion in plan. This space is developed In the

through each conveying different information about the space. The first drawing shows a thickened wall and the perceived notion of a ‘solid space’. The second drawing shows the excavated space inside the wall which are used as servant or auxiliary spaces for rooms, cupboards, toilets. Third drawing shows the positive void space and the negative space wrapped by walls. Like Louis Kahn they make a clear distinction between servant space as shown in black and served space as shown in white, they give the walls an apparent thickness and turn them into inhabitable space.7 The inhabitable space is formed by “making [void] space penetrate into the interior [solid space], inventing a hollow structure that contains space.”8 Therefore Aires Mateus emphasis is not solids but voids with contained spatial qualities which the solids contain or enclose, so as to “make the voids experienced as spatial.”9 This form of inversion provides insights to the proposed design in an the in-between space of interiorised public space that could be used and reversed through manipulating positive and negative space - in the form of a village inside a building, architecture within architecture, where spaces are contained within solids . This seeks to address the aim/s of defining the mall to consider human scale, inside/outside relationships and questions the notions of boundary.

7 8 9

Ibid, 27. Ibid, 23. Ibid, 44.


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Figure 5.2.2.1.3 “Perceived” mass enclosing void: Solid void diagram, Black = solid mass, White = void space

Figure 5.2.2.1.4 Hollow inhabitable masses Walls & Spaces – “Reality” of inhabitable spaces

Figure 5.2.2.1.5 White = space, Black = solid mass, but inhabitable All Images source: http://archtendencias.com.br/arquitetura/casa-barreira-antunes-aires-mateus#.VJBeRyuUeJY


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If the inversion seen in the house in Alentejo Coast was used

House in Brejos de Azeitao, Portugal by Aires Mateus inverts in the vertical. In this house the

horizontally,

rooms are suspended into clusters of white volumes. The application of the layout of the house is similar to the process of de-malling, but at a smaller scale. The rooms of the house is broken up into smaller scales that create crevasses to form double-height void space. Here we again perceive Aires Mateus’s methodology of inversion, that is, the reversal of solid and void producing inhabitable solids. The solidified volumes are servant spaces, indicated black, which are private individual rooms. And the void space on the lower floor becomes a served space which is more public, indicated in white. And in between, the circulation such as the stairs to the upper solid volumes is situated through inhabitable solid walls “so called flowing space ... used to achieve the continuity of inside [private rooms] and outside [public void space].”10 What is interesting about this house is the arrangement of the private rooms suspended on top to create a sense of weightlessness suggesting a landscape on the ceiling where it is usually flat and enclosed. This suggests a new way of conceiving shop layouts in a shopping mall - hollowing out the ground/lower level to provide a more open space, and the shops are suspended.

10

Robert Venturi. “Inside and outside” in Complexity and contradiction in architecture (New York: The Museum of Modern Art: 1966), 82.


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Figure 5.2.2.1.6 Floating volumes

Figure 5.2.2.1.7 Inhabitable solid (Circulation/Stairs and rooms) and void spaces

Image source: http://archidose.blogspot.co.nz/2006/06/half-dose-24-house-in-brejos-de.html

Image source: http://www.imagina2.com/pr-058j-azeitao.html


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Casa dos Cubos, also located in Portugal Embaixada Arquitectura, has similar notions to

The project

by the work of Aires Mateus. By expressing individual rooms as ‘units’ of buildings inside a shared void space, the architecture suggests a new quality of space: an inversion of inside and outside, a building inside a building. It creates a new dimension of space that forms private forms in an interiorised public realm. The house also has an envelope that portrays public space and each solid mass as private rooms. Instead of having circulation in thick solid walls, the architect used an enclosed corridor to connect each individual room. The enclosed corridor allows people to both travel inside or outside or on the top of it. It allows various access points from either the public void or private rooms. This house, as with those of Aires Mateus, introduces multiple levels of interiority, a condition to be explored in the mall redevelopment, to change/invert one’s experience of inside and outside, private and public spaces. As opposed to a conventional ‘dual’ outside and inside relationship, these houses bring about an in-between space, a ‘third space’, that of an outside within the inside. In other words, there is the absolute outside space (of the street), then inside the building there exists a division between the privatized ‘inner inside’ space (that of the rooms) and a semi-private/public ‘outer inside’ space (that of the circulation space). The experience through different sets of spatial quality is playful due to having an interlocking of series complex forms of solid volumes in a simple monolithic envelope. “In a surprisingly large number of cases, living structures contain some form of interlock: situations where centres [rooms] are “hooked” into their surroundings [within the envelope].”11 The ‘outer’ inside space, under the envelope is permeable horizontally and vertically which makes the void space more open even though a large proportion of the floor area is for private rooms and circulations, which are ‘inner’ inside spaces.

11 Alexander, Christopher, The Nature of Order: Book one (Berkeley, Calif.: Center for Environmental Structure 2002), 195.


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Figure 5.2.2.1.8 Envelope wrapping architecture Image source: http://www.archdaily.com/202783/casa-dos-cubos-embaixada-arquitectura/

Figure 5.2.2.1.9 & 5.2.2.1.10 Architecture within architecture Image source: http://www.archdaily.com/202783/casa-dos-cubos-embaixada-arquitectura/


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5.2.2.2 POSITIVE/NEGATIVE INVERSION: EVENT SPACE INTERSECTIONS The inversion of positive and negative space works similarly to the to ‘inside and outside inversion’ strategy but explored at a different level. The positive and negative space inversion not only looks at the solid and void but will explore the idea of the in-between space that is generated through collisions of old and new, forms, and programs. In the collection of essays of Tschumi Le Fresnoy Architecture In/Between, it defines the spatial quality of the in between space. This in-between space is shown in Le Fresnoy’s steel roof that acts as an umbrella over the pre-existing buildings, acting as the residual space, a marginal space where anything could happen. Tschumi demonstrates that Les Fresnoy speaks of an “architecture event rather than an architecture object, since the purpose of the building is to dynamize and intensity human activities.”12 The architecture object is an architecture built for its form or as a monument. Tschumi looked at a disjunction between the elements of architecture, space (the fabrication of physical or material spaces), movement (the movement of bodies in space), and finally, the event.”13 To Tschumi uses a process of deprogramming. This deconstructs the program and the proposal itself and identify what it lacks, making seminal interpretations. It allows flexibility for people to do their practices in this space of ‘event’. Architecture is not simply about space and form, but also about event, action, and what happens in space. The residual space and marginal space leaves space for the unknown for the spontaneous events that could happen which Tschumi calls ‘event space’. Functions can be seen as actions then architecture can be seen of ‘constructing events.’ Tschumi’s notion of the ‘event space’ could provide a place for everyday activities in the proposed mall redevelopment, allowing the mall to be dynamic and intensified by spontaneous activities.

12 Bernald Tschumi, ed., “Preface.” in Tschumi Le Fresnoy Architecture In/Between ( New York: Monacelli Press, 1999), 15. 13 Bernald Tschumi, ed., The Architectural Project of Le Fresnoy Bernard Tschumi.” in Tschumi Le Fresnoy Architecture In/Between ( New York: Monacelli Press, 1999),37.


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Figure 5.2.2.2 Architecture is about event and action: Tschumi’s witness of action Image source: http://unit03-metamorphosis.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/the-manhattan-transcripts.html


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5.2.2.3 PERCEPTION INVERSION: POROSITY OF FACADE AND PERFORATED BOUNDARIES In Steven Holl’s designs, the idea of porosity is taken from biological phenomena where elements have the ability to allow the passage of matter through small openings. Porosity involves mixing views, programmes and paths within the space that creates permeability of light, air, accessibility and visibility. On the previous studies of inversions of inside and outside, four variations of horizontal, vertical, diagonal, and overall porosity were discussed: interlocking of solid volumes that creates permeability thus suggesting conditions of porosity. In Steven Holl’s projects, the Sarphatistraat office in Netherlands is a good example of both perceptual porosity and volumetric porosity. Porosity was seen to open the “horizon” and merge both exterior and interior. The pavilion combines the concepts of the ‘sponge’ with a concept from Morton Feldman’s music, “Patterns in a Chromatic Field,” which creates a consistent flow in a series of events which activate the space of the main corridors. 14 “The layers of perforated screens are developed in three dimensions, analogous to the ‘Menger Sponge’ principle of openings that are continuously cut in planes and constantly approaching zero volume.”15 The variation in the green painted-on ‘patina’ of the copper, along with the moire patterns that appear to the angle of the viewer, visually dissolve the surface and volume of the exterior.16 The porous volume blurs the boundary of outside and inside space.

14 Russell, James S. “Architectural Record.” Ever-changing Pavilion 189, no. 1 (2011): 125-135. 15 Ross, Kritiana. “Flashback: Sarphatistraat Offices / Steven Holl Architects” (24 Jan 2012). ArchDaily. Accessed 07 May 2014. <http://www. archdaily.com/?p=201033> 16 Russell, James S. “Architectural Record.” Ever-changing Pavilion 189, no. 1 (2011): 135.


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Figure 5.2.2.3.1 Solid inside porous envelope Image source: http://www.stevenholl.com/project-detail.php?id=41&recentpress=53

Figure 5.2.2.3.2 Architecture within architecture Image source: http://www.stevenholl.com/project-detail.php?id=41&recentpress=53


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Porosity plays on the boundaries between positive and negative space and breaks it down. This permeability is a transitional space that exists on the margins of solid and void. By cutting voids and punctuations of windows, it breaks down the figure. Porosity as a means of reprogramming transitional space within a mall. Porosity is related to the “Borders and Boundary” being one of the ideal qualities of a borderline. Jan Gehl, urban planner and designer, refers to this phenomenon as the ‘edge effect’, stating that successful boundaries are those that are designed to create invitations to stop.17 But in some edges, blurring the boundary could become a good tool to explore both inside and outside a building where public access is welcomed – if controlled – such as privatised shopping centres. The inversion of perception by blurring the boundary by means of porous façades and volumes, privatised malls could have a greater sense of publicness. Jerold S. Kayden, professor of urban planning, in Privately Owned Public Space, he comments that the public spaces sited on private properties that are freely accessible can be used by the public.18 These ideas of inversions are needed to redevelop the Downtown shopping mall because the city is lacking public third spaces for communal bonds providing a vitality of various social interactions and activities- spaces where people can feel, sense, relate and act in the city. As based on the site analysis, the inversions helps to link the waterfront and the city. The mall in Steven Holl’s terms is a “sponge form” that connects to the main retail precincts, Queen Street. Like a sponge, the design will absorb the outside into the inside space so that light and air can come through in the perceptual porosity of the mesh facade of the envelope and blur the harsh-edged boundaries as we often see in tall office blocks. By opening out the mall both physically and visually, it forms the quality of a blurred insideoutside space to invert the qualities of a conventional mall which is introverted, enclosed and heterotopic. The mall is not an isolated block anymore so that it invites pedestrians to a public space of shopping which is more accessible both visually and physically. Through these conceptual and physical inversions of the design will be activated with movement and interactions, offering a place for everyday social practices and events.

17 Gehl, Jan. Cities for people. (Washington, DC: Island press, 2010). 18 Kayden, Jerold S. Privately Owned Public Space: The New York Experience (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 2000).


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Figure 5.2.2.3.3 ‘Sponge form’ Image source: http://eliinbar.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/copy-of-copy-of-zaha-hadid-steven-holl-eliinbar-sketches-201000011.jpg

Figure 5.2.2.3.4 Solid in sponge form Image source: http://www.stevenholl.com/project-detail.php?id=41&recentpress=53


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Figure 5.3.1 Conceptual Sketch Image by author


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5.3 D E S I G N C O N C E P T: AUCKALND DOWNTOWN SHOPPING CENTRE


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In the present culture of urban society, people are used to being busy. The ‘work ethic’ is reflected in modern lifestyle whereby people find few places to rest, to stop, or to meditate. The void of the proposed mall achieves a balance between the busy private shops and the calm from it. Without the void there is no place for action; and without action the urban environment is left with a cold emptiness. Jan Gehl limits his optional activities to simple actions such as touching, sitting, climbing and people watching. However these ideas of play need to be translated further in order test their application in architecture. The concept of everyday space delineates the physical domain of everyday activity. Henri Lefebvre was the first philosopher to insist that the apparently trivial everyday life constitutes the basis of all social experience. He distinguished a series of social activities in his book Everyday life in the modern world: the quotidian, the timeless, humble, repetitive natural rhythms of life; the modern, the always new and constantly changing habits that are usually shaped by globalisation.1 Elizabeth Farrelly suggested that play of activities is about curiosity, exploration, and adventure.2 For the mall to fully engage with practices of everyday urban life, there is a need to design intimate, enclosed spaces within edged boundaries which are fit for spontaneous interaction socially, physically and mentally. This conceptual scheme is an interpretation of the notion of inversion as discussed previously.

1 Henri Lefebvre. Everyday life in the modern world. (New York: Harper, 1971), 25. 2

Farrelly, Elizabeth. Blubberland: The dangers of happiness. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008).


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From Steven Holl’s term ‘sponge’ mass, the mall can interconnect the urban context as well as publicly in the introverted fortress of a mall. The ‘sponge’ form is experimented in physical models to explore the porosity of gap spaces and voids. As the ‘sponge’ models are in a morphed state, they are transformed into rectilinear shapes that could fit into the context of orthogonal office buildings. The cardboard models show the porosity through form or surface, it reflects the dynamics of void space more than the ‘sponge models’. These process of model making was to create an interiorised public void space like an arcade and galleria which will have administrative porosity - the sharing of private spaces with the public. The inside and outside inversion of a mall is used to break down the isolated mall into smaller scales of shops. And by relocating clusters of shops in the form of a village inside a building, the void between shops will provide a place for rest or action. The space between the exterior envelope and the interior village is activated as an ‘event space’. It is purposely left ‘unprogrammed’ from the idea of Bernard Tschumi’s Event Space so that it is objectified into a field condition - a space of flow in Stan Allen’s terms. Application of Allen’s terms to notions of porosity is visual in different levels of clusters of private shops; local interconnectivity in-between the shopvillages; in-between the envelope and village; and between the building and its context. The porosity creates the spaces in-between which is now defined as a new object in itself as a kind of positive or active void which in turn permits new spaces of flow transmitting connectivities and fluid transitions through activities as seen in the new retail spaces: social and cultural.

Figure 5.3.2 (Next pages) Experimental model: Sponge form with foam Image by author


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Figure 5.3.3 Experimental model: Sponge form Image by author

Figure 5.3.4 Experimental model: Sponge form and de-malling Image photoshopped by author

Figure 5.3.5 (Left) Experimental model: Sponge form with cardboard Image by author


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Figure 5.3.6 Working with practices and existing area of shops in Downtown Shopping Centre Image by author

The municipal inversion is achieved using the same proportions and dimensions of the existing stores in the existing Downtown shopping mall. The plan shows the process of ‘De-malling’ which breaks the mall into smaller segments that allows pedestrians to flow easily on the public walkway. The mall is largely divided into two buildings from the division made by pedestrian axis. It creates a public lane for pedestrians to enjoy the retail promenade. The journey through the boundary climaxes in the discovery of intimate ‘pocket’ spaces, suitable for interaction. The pockets of void spaces are defined as public squares where there are unprogrammed for events and activities. For these public spaces to be successful like an arcade, the envelope, like the glass dome of arcade, needs to be visually clear. For the people to feel the space as being public, rather than enclosed by a thick solid wall, a transparent façade is more suitable to blur the boundary of the space.


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Figure 5.3.7 Sectional plan Image by author


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For the people to feel the space as being public, rather than enclosed by a thick solid wall, a transparent façade is more suitable to blur the boundary of the space. In terms of materiality, it will be covered with a glass envelope that protects the interior. The transparency of the skin will create a free flowing pathway along the harbour, bringing the artwork to the everyday life of the citizens. Hence the perceptual inversion occurs by introducing the mesh structure for the outer layer of the mall to allow for visual and solar porosity as well as visual links between inside and outside. The qualities of light and shadow and visual links are tested from the physical model of punctuated steel mesh, similar to what Steven Holl used in Sarphatistraat office in Netherlands. The punctuated mesh is frequently used in architecture but it lacked in detail and experience. To relate the façade to the context with more detail and atmosphere, the porosity of the façade is influenced by the waterfront. The patterns and the various line weights reflect the movement of the sea. The patterned facades portray different types of qualities to the experience of shopping in the mall, providing a constant interplay between light and shadow. Experience is a mix of feeling and thought. 3 Tuan suggests the important feature of humans’ sensory enabling them to have strong feelings and experiences of space include kinaesthesia, sight, and touch. “Human beings not only discern geometric patterns in nature and create abstract space in the mind; they also try to embody their feelings, images, and thoughts in tangible material.”4 The meaning of space and architecture then becomes merged in the context of experience. The architecture seems light with small proportions of shops inverted from a gigantic singular mass. The lightness of the glass and the fine curves of the mesh façade gives a poetic perception of a solid object which is blurred and evanescent. What is important in this conceptual scheme was the introduction of the idea of a village contained inside a building. This was achieved with two primary elements: a series of interior masses (shops) contained within an envelope of glass and mesh, where an event space was created in-between.

3 Tuan, Y.F. Space and Plance: The Perspective of Experience. (Univeristy of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1977), 10. Ibid.

4

Figure 5.3.7 Experimental model: porosity study Image by author


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Figure 5.3.8 Facade influenced by the waterfront Image by author


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Figure 5.3.9 (Top) Facade with variety of thickness and scale of porosity Image by author

Figure 5.3.10 (Right) Experiential light study with the facade Image by author


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Figure 5.3.10 Pedestrian Axis and Square Image by author


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Figure 5.3.11 Exterior and Interior of the mall Image by author


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Figure 5.3.12 Pedestrian Axis with floating volumes of shops Image by author


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Figure 5.3.13 Pocket of event space : square Image by author


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Figure 5.4 H-Scheme Sketch Image by author


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5.4.1 S C H E M E O N E H SCHEME + INNER CITY RAIL


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5.4.1 SCHEME ONE: H SCHEME + INNER CITY RAIL

The H-scheme introduces the logic of the mall having pillars to form the ground level. This scheme trys to improve on from the previous which are shape of the envelope; opening the ground level; considerations of pedestrian traffic from immediate context The previous components of the design were to be further articulated and extended in relation to: ○ 1. Strategy for articulating interior masses (The Cloud - white; levels 2-4) The previous shops (white masses) lifted up from the ground to ‘free’ or ‘open’ up the ground level ○ 2. Strategy for articulating exterior envelope (The H / Legs, continuous envelope connecting basement floor to top (Legs for LIFTS to access suspended shops), providing a ‘platform’ for the Cloud, deprogrammed event space - mesh) ○ 3. Strategy for the ground floor (level 0) footbridges/ramps (relationship between the scheme and surroundings, traffic, etc. Opening up the ground floor, reinforce pedestrian axis) ○ 4. Strategy for the basement level -1 concourse of shops, with voids looking down to train platform ○ 5. Extension of Britomart train terminus on basement level -2 (CRL)

Figure 5.4.1.1 Combination of H-blocks : to elevate the ground floor for better accessibility to mall and rail station Image by author


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Figure 5.4.1.2 Laneways with void spaces : f ields can travel both horizontally and vertically. Image by author


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The development introduces Britomart’s future projection of a rail extension. The central rail line (CRL) goes under the site creating a 90 degree curve 2-storeys underground. Auckland Council also proposed for the development of the Waterfront the, pedestrianisation of Quay Street. This connects Waterfront to Downtown as it is disconnected due to traffic congestion making it inconvenient for the pedestrians to walk. Looking at the urban morphology of the context and the future developments, there are streets, lanes, axis and other lines that the design could adapt. The proposed ground level an extension of the pedestrian axis, streetscapes from Tyler Street and Galway Street, a line created from the Ferry building opening, the diagonal shortcut from Queen Street to Lower Albert Street and the historic lane of Little Queen Street. These streetscape elements are all exterior as although there are many advantages in terms of interior space, it is usually privatised which means tight control that has the propensity to discourage social activities.5 As the exterior retail street has a role in the design, it is important to consider Allan Jacob’s criteria for successful streets. In Great Streets, Jacobs mentions that spatial definition and enclosure are key criteria. Jacobs sees the importance of smaller spaces in the urban environment. To her, space, is an intimate space. “When it is easy to see people, when you almost can’t avoid it, then it can be easy to know them.”6 These narrow exterior laneways to make them fully public for easier accessibility. This narrow and porous spatial dimension which allows people to watch each other is a starting point of interaction and has potential to extend the interaction by activities in streets. Varying the spatial sequences into paths and squares will also encourage movement and staying, whilst at the same time provide different levels of intensity. The ground floor has narrow streets that connects to the urban streets and wider streets where there is most pedestrian flow such as the pedestrian axis and the shortcut. The diagonal shortcuts that leads from Queen Street to Lower Albert Street

5 Farrelly, Elizabeth. Blubberland: The dangers of happiness. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008).

6

Jacobs, Allen. Great Streets. (USA: The MIT Press, 1993), 16.


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or vice versa, they are formed to make a cross with the CRL curve so that people can travel down to the CRL platform then come up to the ground floor. The inverted shops are elevated two storeys high wrapped by an envelope with pillars to give permeability for consistent flow of movement for pedestrians. In this scheme, experiential porosity through the variation of layers, spaces, and materials, enhances the ability of consumers or pedestrians to explore a different spatial qualities.

Figure 5.4.1.2 (Left) Axonometric for H-scheme Image by author

Figure 5.4.1.3 (Top) Spatial Quality of H scheme Image by author


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Figure 5.4.1.4 Sectional perspectives 1 & 2 Image by author


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Figure 5.4.2 Event Scheme Sketch Image by author


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5.4.2 S C H E M E T W O E V E N T SCHEME


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Figure 5.4.2.1 Iterations Image by author


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The logic of the mall having pillars to form the ground level public can be further explored however, through this scheme, it is visible that the laneways with porosity will take up most of the ground level which will not have enough space for have squares and stores. The moments of porosity flowing both vertically and horizontally from the CRL to the elevated shops will or rest. Development of the envelope component: To maximise the area for sales and activities for the lower part of the building to provide a genuine third place, various conceptual models are generated: experimenting with crevices; with edged boundaries; with combinations of blocks; with suburban qualities; with curved landscape forms; and with diagonal cut-outs. Throughout the explorations, the best model having potential to be a third space is the one with the landscape on the lower part of the mall with a simplified rectilinear form of envelope on 5 sides. The bottom face has the same contour with the lower part as if it is split and separated into different levels. Although the urban landscape is usually a successful place for public space, it loses the vertical porosity that linked the CRL to the mall. Also, its quality of being slanted is inexpedient to have commercial elements and shops.


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Figure 5.4.2.2 Sloped surface iterations Image by author


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From this development of the envelope, a new opportunity arose which could replace the previous series of ramps, bridges, and concourse at ground level, that is, the introduction of a Lower Village component as a terraced landscape of squares: To achieve the same quality of a sloped surface, the same methodology of interconnected shops of upper villages is applied to provide villages on the lower part. From the distribution of demographics and their activities, the villages of shops are planned. By dispersing the possible practices on site, the Downtown block will be a place-making retail area that people can meander both horizontally and vertically through the clusters of interlocked retails and squares. These clusters form small inverted shops which are placed on the sloped surface to compose the same dynamics of different levels. As their four sides are visible, it is as accessible, and open to pedestrian circulation. These small shops acts as small boundaries within spaces for people to work with, as well as sometimes providing the surrounding retail stores with programmatic porosity by sharing activities. They are positioned in between the CRL and the mall in a way that will capture both visitors to the station, and casual shoppers. This will create unavoidable yet desirable close contact between the two different user groups, and also the shop assistants, sparking opportunities for play between them. It is apparent that the clusters of villages are not interrupting the visual porosity to the pedestrian allowing one to flow over into the interlocked villages of retail. The terraces form a multiplicity of squares of different scales that people can pause to linger, explore, sit and enjoy. And the interlocked squares allow for multiple pedestrian routes to pass through from one square to another to intertwine with other activities held in different squares. The squares possess a large potential to be a civic place that is capable of holding events.


156

From the research of the De-malling process in chapter 4, the notions of plaza were essential to turn a privatised mall into a public gathering space. The treatment of boundary decides the space to be comfortable. In William Whyte’s film The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces observes people in public spaces and how they are all inclined to act in a similar behaviour. Their behaviour informed the formal conditions. The most defining characteristic was that people do not stop often to talk in the middle of large spaces and in fact they prefer to hug the edges and find corners.7 Boundaries are the spaces which best accommodate life as they provide something for people to sit by or work against. As a result they are rich in social interaction. Therefore, the proposed lower villages (the villages on ground floor to underground) are split into segments of inhabitable rooftop retails with different scales and heights. The squares, having different levels, give a sense of an enclosed atmosphere but able to watch others enjoy in public spaces.

7 William Whyte, film on The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces http://vimeo.com/6821934


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Figure 5.4.2.3 Events on sloped surfaces. Image by author


158 DEMOGRAPHICS OF AUCKLAND CBD

MERCHANT

R

OLLE R

SPORTSM AN

STR

IST

LOCAL

HEGUI LPEDE/ R

R PE

ACTI V

COUPLE

GA ME R

OP

R

IN FO

AD VE RT ISE

S ER O

M R

ER

DA IL Y

PHOTOGRAPHER

PICNIC SIEST ENTHU

ATED INTOXIC DRINKER

ARTIST

SH

BBER

BLE IA

NG MO

VAN

ER

AUDIE NCE SEE KER

OR

MOVES MADE : INTERCONNECTED VOLUMES RESIZE IN WIDTH/LENGTH DIFFER HEIGHTS ADD STAIRCASE

QUALITIES ACHIEVED : MEANDERING BOTH HORIZONTALLY AND VERTICALLY PLACEMAKING CIVIC DIMENSIONS ENHANCING EXPERIENCE INHABITABLE RETAILS

R/ ME ORURER T PERF FAC NU MA

RKER WO

BEGGAR

ER

C SO

D

PERF OR ME R

BUS KER

HOMELESS COMMUTERS

RT

FOO D

KE T MAR R GOE

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O SP ANR TRSE U

ST

BE DR VE IN R KE AG R E

ER STYL

CHILDREN

ER ER IT

FA

SUR VEY

AD ER

CLU

SM

LO

EA TE R

RE

LIFE

TEENAGER

DO GW ALKE

TERTIARY STUDENT

RUNNER

OUT OF TOWN ADULT

ELDERLY

CYC SKATEBOA LIST/ RDER

OFFICE WORKER

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159

The minimum width of the square was determined by the characteristic that people like to walk in small groups like pairs or trios. As Gehl states, having a space in small proportion is better. “Being at a party in a huge room with few guests is never particularly festive; being in a smaller room with greater density is far more intense and lively.�8 The plan allows for the comfortable walking space but also bringing people closer for moments. To activate the unprogrammed space of squares, food venders are placed to attract people who cannot help themselves when there is an opportunity to impulse buy. The attraction of people allows for more sellers and eventually more buyers. Activating what could be a mindless commute. The event space will be an attraction for people to do their practices of everyday life. Again, creating more focal points for distractions, reducing the perceived length of daily commuting. This scheme continues to have the CRL rail at the lowermost floor and a series of shops suspended in the upper portion of the envelope, now termed as the Upper Villages.

Figure 5.4.2.4 Spacial layout for different event space to demographics Image by author

8

109.

Gehl, Jen. Cities for people. (Washington, DC: Island press, 2010),


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Figure 5.4.2.5 Combinations of event spaces in different levels. (Forming mutual space between some shops) Image by author


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Figure 5.4.2.6 Form iterations Image by author


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Figure 5.4.3 Tetris Scheme Sketch Image by author


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5.4.3 S C H E M E THREE T E T R I S SCHEME


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From the previous scheme, components such as lower villages of retail are addressed. The improvements will be made on the upper level to create a new dimension of space through inversion. The design has to deliver a highly permeable layout which incorporates all the aspects of porosity. To form a continuous flow of the public realm, the design has to relate to the surrounding context, this is provided by the perceptual inversion in the visual porosity of form and facade. The envelope and the layout of villages are punctuated with gaps and layers of visual porosity, blurring the distinction between inside and out. Through the inversion of inside-outside and positive-negative space, the design of the mall is regenerated by removing any monotony from the existing mall and creating transitional play of boundaries which have a sense of indoor/outdoor ambiguity. The consumers are interactive socially through conversation in squares and retails, physically via touching and experiencing and mentally by means of exploration.

Figure 5.4.3.1 Isomatic view on site Image by author


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Figure 5.4.3.2 & 5.4.3.3 Perspective view on event space Image by author


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Due to the inside-outside inversion, the building is inside another structure of architecture. It has created complex layers of space that can be categorised into: outsideoutside, outside-inside, inside-inside. But has another level of complexity as the building has different types of outside-inside space. For example the outside-inside space is inside the mesh infrastructure but it also acts as an atrium space in between the boundary of outside space and the envelope. This makes the villages and square platforms of the lower level of the outside-inside space public. The villages of shops are unconventionally sized and located so as to allow a variety of activities to take place through the openness and publicness for the users. These various categories of outside-inside spaces helps the mall to be an incubator for social life to revitalise the atmosphere of the mall. What else makes this an environment to be in? There is a nexus between public space and mall space. The design of the shopping mall is a private investment seemingly operated as a public space. For both of them, the setting should provide the desired mix of interest, potential, and challenge by calibrating and serving the diverse needs of multiple individuals. As shoppers think that a shopping mall is a public realm, “if public spaces prioritise one kind of need, then people will not be motivated by that need will be inclined to stay away.”9

9

Melissa Mean and Charlie Tims. People Make Places: Growing the Public Life of Cities (United Kingdom: DEMOS, 2005), 52.

Figure 5.4.3.4 3D sectional view of 4 catagories of spaces Image by author


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Figure 5.4.3.5 2D sectional view of 4 catagories of spaces Image by author

‘Outside-outside’ is where it is completely out of the building. ( colour-coded gradient gray) ‘Outside-inside’ is inside atrium and mesh infrastructure space where the shelter is but not completely enclosed. (colour-coded blue) ‘Inside-inside’ is the villages of retail areas (colour-coded dark gray) On the outside-inside (on the mesh or sheltered parts), the inside-inside space (villages), the inhabitable rooftop squares are pushed, and pulled at, interlocked and attached to create edges and corners for pedestrians to find interactions. The different ways of interlocking retails add various types of spatial qualities to the consumers inside shops. This curiosity leads to experiential porosity, allowing users to experience, explore, and discover the changing forms and spaces of the boundary. The interlocking of individual retailers can connect to form an extension of the shop or can create a pocket space for programmatic porosity where the programmes (retail commodity or theme) mix together.


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Figure 5.4.3.6 Interlocking villages: spacial combination of shops Image by author


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Figure 5.4.3.7 3D long sectional view Image by author


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Figure 5.4.3.8 Images from video showing CRL, event space, villages of shops Image by author


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Figure 6 Final Sketch Image by author


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6 F I N A L PROPOSAL


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Demographics and Urban-Practices Age + Gender Demographics

7-14

15-30

31-64

15-30

31-64

65+

0-6

7-14

15-30

65+

0-6

7-14

15-30

31-64

AGE

0-6

7-14

15-30

KEY:

Men

0-6

7-14

TIME 2%

0% 65+

15-30

31-64

2%

The mix between males and females is fairly equivalent.

But...

45%

48%

31-64

3%

46%

5%

46%

4%

1% 65+

9 pm

7%

42%

50% 2%

45% 2%

31-64

7 pm

0%

7%

3%

7-14

5 pm

1%

0-6

65+

2%

1%

0-6

0%

1%

9%

41%

43%

55 %

48%

44%

PERCENTAGE

3 pm

1 pm

48%

11 am

50%

Elderly (65+ years): 2% Children (0 - 14 years): 3% Young people (15 - 30 years): 46% Middle -aged (30 - 65 years): 50%

“Few children and elderly” 65+

in typology it is not a space that encourages families with childern

Women

Occupation Demographics and their Practices of Everyday Life

OCCUPATION DEMOGRAPHICS IN DOWNTOWN

THE DAILY PLAY + PRACTICES IN PUBLIC SPACES

SPACIAL FACTORS + CONDITIONS

ZONING INTO MINI-MALLS

Market Sell Market Go Food-trailer/van sell Urban picnic enthusiast Help/volunteer

Office worker

Transport Use Tertiary student

Photograph

Local loiterer Tourist

Smoke

Rhizomic Network

Read

Smart Digital

Beverage Drink

Retail/Service worker

Parioptical Control

Fine Dine

Retired person Secondary student

Stroll

Loose Event

Busk/perform

Dromologic Speed

Donate/sign-up/protest

Gardian with child

Raw Derive

Run

Jobless

Dog Walk Cyclist Shopping Clubbing Beg Recreation Art/sketch

Spacial factors

exposed to elements

seating

toilet

lighting

loud noise

unpopulated

table/ furniture

car park/ transport

soft ground

moderate noise

populated

fresh air

sheltered

secluded area

hard ground

no or little noise

nature

climate control

Figure 6.1.1 Detail research graphs for demographic and spaces Image by author

Environmental conditions


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Towards the end of the development, the design was losing its sense of place-making environment for urban social practices. This led to the research into the site demographics. The graph shows there is a fair mix of genders but there are overwhelmingly large proportions of young and middle aged groups. The Downtown area in CBD does not encourage families with children and elderly. It is important to amalgamate the public from all age groups, the mall has to balance the programme and space for a larger audience. Also research in precincts of the block is essential to locate the retail or event space for practices. The precincts are largely divided into three parts: waterfront on the edge of Quay Street, commercial on the corner of Albert Street and retail and public towards Queen Street. To relate the demographics to the site context, the mall is formed with the main ‘inversion strategy’: breaking down the mall into smaller villages or mini-malls with different experiential qualities based on the demographics of the site and then is divided into six parts with the themes of: dĂŠrive, panoptic, rhizomatic, dromologic, smart and event space. The event space is the inhabitable roof-top squares on the lower villages of shops and the five mini malls comprise the upper villages. The parallel geometry of the five mini malls results from the projection of site building footprints, walkway, lane and street thus allowing the building to remain parallel to the port. The massing mesh infrastructure is aligned with the existing structures of the surrounding buildings providing clues to insert programmes or themes in to the mall. This sought to provide successful zones of shopping to relate to the urban fabric.


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Routes of key precincts

Division of 3 precincts

Axial lines for reference

Outcome of Mini-malls

Building footprint

Waterfront

Commercial + Retail area

Panoptic mini-mall: high-brands

Dromologic mini-mall: minor

Zurich + HSBC towers

Public area

Derive mini-mall: market

Rhizomic mini-mall: food courts

Smart mini-mall: digital

Figure 6.1.2 Diagram for space/mini-mall distribution Image by author


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Figure 6.1.3 Isomatric diagram for mini-mall zoning Image by author


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Figure 6.1.4 Penn Station sectional sketch Image by Design Boom http://www.designboom.com/architecture/diller-scofidio-renfro-propose-penn-station-3-0/


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Figure 6.1.5 Penn Station upper floor plan Image by Design Boom http://www.designboom.com/architecture/diller-scofidio-renfro-propose-penn-station-3-0/


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Penn station and Madison square garden proposal by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, has similar conceptual focuses on the key element which forms the city inside the city, porous structure filled with diverse programs. The station dictates human space and activity by time. Departure and arrival times are the most important factors in the use of space and is solved through a complex layering of program that organizes it into zones based on the time they require. For instance, transit-orientated programs layered with slower destinations in a gradient of decelerating speeds from tracks to roof. This distribution of programmes with time-sensitive amenities provides a mixed configuration vertically. For the proposed design, a similar concept will be employed, where the anchors for slow and time-consuming programmes are accommodated on the upper levels in the mall and rapid activities and on-to-go shops are located in the lower part. The Penn Station proposal has similar aspects that could assist the Downtown mall to adopt its layout of time and programmes. The zoning is applied in both vertical and horizontal aspects that makes the mall successful in attracting people to do daily social practices.

my interpretation of layering time


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Figure 6.1.6 Old & New Monumentality Penn Station Image by Design Boom http://www.designboom.com/architecture/diller-scofidio-renfro-propose-penn-station-3-0/

Figure 6.1.7 Penn Station layering shops with high priority up and less down. Image by Design Boom http://www.designboom.com/architecture/diller-scofidio-renfro-propose-penn-station-3-0/


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In the different zones of the mini-malls, there are void spaces in between the villages of retails. The void space inside the mesh infrastructure will be privately owned public space. Privately Owned Public Spaces, abbreviated as ‘POPS’, are an amenity provided and maintained by a developer for public use. The spaces inside the mesh infrastructure (blue colour coding on the plans)is open and flexibly used by the public however it will be closed after the hours of villages of retails. It is intended to provide light, air, breathing room and green space to ease the predominately hard-scaped character of the City’s densest areas. POPS typically contain functional and visual amenities known as movable physical objects such as movable planters, stalls, menu stands, tables, chairs and other furniture for the purpose of public use and enjoyment.10 These are called ‘semi-fixed’ elements that are commonly set up along on sidewalks to create cultural identity.11 The benefits of this is that it can be easily rearranged to make a new environmental identity of a place. The variations of movable physical objects will be placed on the POPS and the roof tops of villages due the characteristics following their theme of mini-malls.

10 Stevens, Quentin. The Ludic City: Exploring the potential of public spaces. (London: Routledge, 2007) 11 Hall, Edward. T. The Hidden Dimension, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969)

Figure 6.1.8 Plans Image by author


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6

6 11

3

8 2 9 9

2 Britomart transport station underpass ď Ą

3

11

8 10

6

3

2

Underground -1

Core (Scenic elevator + Emergency stairs)

Mesh+floor plate section

Underground

Mesh underneath

Shops underneath

Sectioned private-shop

Existing buildings (HSBC + Zurich)

Open green area

Void space

Circulation up

Privately Owned Public Space

1 Accomodation 6 Service and Leisure

2 Dine and Take-aways 7 Shopping - anchors

3 Entertainment 8 Shopping - standards

4 Manufacture 9 Shopping - minors

N

Scale 1:1000 5 Urban Garden and plantation 10 Display area 11 Indoor event space (Booking)


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Quay Street

2 5

9

Albert Street

3

Queen Street

11

10

2

9

6

Custom East Street

Ground Floor

Core (Scenic elevator + Emergency stairs)

Mesh+floor plate section

Underground

Mesh underneath

Shops underneath

Sectioned private-shop

Existing buildings (HSBC + Zurich)

Open green area

Void space

Circulation up

Privately Owned Public Space

1 Accomodation 6 Service and Leisure

2 Dine and Take-aways 7 Shopping - anchors

3 Entertainment 8 Shopping - standards

4 Manufacture 9 Shopping - minors

N

Scale 1:1000 5 Urban Garden and plantation 10 Display area 11 Indoor event space (Booking)


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8

2

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4th Floor (1st Floor on ‘Upper Villages’)

Core (Scenic elevator + Emergency stairs)

Mesh+floor plate section

Underground

Mesh underneath

Shops underneath

Sectioned private-shop

Existing buildings (HSBC + Zurich)

Open green area

Void space

Circulation up

Privately Owned Public Space

1 Accomodation 6 Service and Leisure

2 Dine and Take-aways 7 Shopping - anchors

3 Entertainment 8 Shopping - standards

4 Manufacture 9 Shopping - minors

N

Scale 1:1000 5 Urban Garden and plantation 10 Display area 11 Indoor event space (Booking)


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5

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10 10

9

2 8

4 2

8

2

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1 2

1

1 1

7

10

7

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6th Floor

Core (Scenic elevator + Emergency stairs)

Mesh+floor plate section

Underground

Mesh underneath

Shops underneath

Sectioned private-shop

Existing buildings (HSBC + Zurich)

Open green area

Void space

Circulation up

Privately Owned Public Space

1 Accomodation 6 Service and Leisure

2 Dine and Take-aways 7 Shopping - anchors

3 Entertainment 8 Shopping - standards

4 Manufacture 9 Shopping - minors

N

Scale 1:1000 5 Urban Garden and plantation 10 Display area 11 Indoor event space (Booking)


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9

2 9

6 2

9

2

10

2

9

2

9

6 3 2 5

2 7

6 2

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10

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6

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7

7

2

7

7th Floor

Core (Scenic elevator + Emergency stairs)

Mesh+floor plate section

Underground

Mesh underneath

Shops underneath

Sectioned private-shop

Existing buildings (HSBC + Zurich)

Open green area

Void space

Circulation up

Privately Owned Public Space

1 Accomodation 6 Service and Leisure

2 Dine and Take-aways 7 Shopping - anchors

3 Entertainment 8 Shopping - standards

4 Manufacture 9 Shopping - minors

N

Scale 1:1000 5 Urban Garden and plantation 10 Display area 11 Indoor event space (Booking)


190

5

Roof Plan

Core (Scenic elevator + Emergency stairs)

Mesh+floor plate section

Underground

Mesh underneath

Shops underneath

Sectioned private-shop

Existing buildings (HSBC + Zurich)

Open green area

Void space

Circulation up

Privately Owned Public Space

1 Accomodation 6 Service and Leisure

2 Dine and Take-aways 7 Shopping - anchors

3 Entertainment 8 Shopping - standards

4 Manufacture 9 Shopping - minors

N

Scale 1:1000 5 Urban Garden and plantation 10 Display area 11 Indoor event space (Booking)


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·

The Dérive mini-mall will be a place with flanuérs who linger around the waterfront and the mall. In the mini-mall of derivé will have markets that have a relation to nature. It is placed across the waterfront and becomes an intriguing space for all ages to meander around. Therefore there will be movable pottery, temporary stalls and dining elements. · The Panoptic mini-mall will contain high brand stores within an open spatial arrangement so that for peoples’ gestures and actions are visible from anywhere. It is controlled visually by each consumer where the particular types of people who shop in this area will be showing off the brands and spying each other’s commodities. Here there will not be any semi-fixed items that blocks the view of others. · The Rhizomatic mini-mall will have numerous semi-fixed items on display. This space is for people to network and interact. As there will be young people who are keen to drink and eat food or confectionary, furniture and signs like menu stands, tables and chairs will be placed around or on top of the shops. · The Dromologic mini-mall is a place where speed is crucial. Therefore there will be an interlocked villages of retails to encourage rapid type of movement. Therefore no object to interrupt the movement. · The Smart mini-mall is all about the use and consumption of technology. The space will be dominated with artificial lights that are coming from smartphones, TVs/Screens, neon lights, etc. Technology will require furniture to support them. Also it will need the structure for charging docks. These semi fixed elements act as a nexus for both fixed elements like retail and social activities. It offers a place to stay as it provides furniture and signs that make consumers want to stop and rest. Though the mall property is owned by Precincts LTD, the semi-fixed elements permits the place to be communal and revitalise it with different everyday activities. With more people and practices on site, it will increase the flow in the mall satisfying both the consumers and the owners.


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193

6.2 MINI-MALLS

Figure 6.2.1 Store commodities Image by The Dieline In children’s book ‘Just because you are 21’


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195

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One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive, literally meaning drift, it is for people who linger or stroll in slow movement as a flanuér. Lingering is usually seen in public spaces where there is anything that people can lay their eyes on. In the mini-mall of Dérive, the existence of the market accelerates the Dérive circulation and exchange of goods of all sorts. The programme above the upper villages gradually appear through time with different functions which slows the circulation until reaching the green rooftop garden, a place of repose and relaxation with views of the city. Marketplaces apply to everyone, every culture, every age, every economic situation, it is common for the less privileged to want to sell at markets because it generally means they will make a greater profit from their product if they sell it directly, this represents the more traditional model of a market. Nowadays Marketplaces are starting to be used as a planning tool to “retro-fit urban areas into destination sites”12. Markets are unique in that they attract both locals and tourists, and are not restricted to the selling and purchasing of goods, and they have the ability to be seen as an attraction or event. Many food stalls offer easy street foods, drinks and confectionary while fixed retail attract crowds of people. Some of the enjoyment that comes from a market is their ability to sell a limitless range of items, often this is part of the attraction, people want to experience new, unexpected things, and this can also be amplified when markets strongly reflect a particular culture. The structure of a market can vary, being held in a public place where people can effectively do what they want, and yet markets have a sense of organisation, where similar types of products are located together, generally in similar sized allotments, creating ordered visible paths.

Figure 6.2.2 Open dinner/market Image by Kinfolk Magazine https://www.kinfolk.com/tag/kinfolk-dinners/

12 Robert J. Shepherd, When Culture goes to Market: space, place, and identity in an urban marketplace, (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 6.


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Brands in Derive mini-mall: Production Hands-on market hand-made

Figure 6.2.3 Brands for Derive space Image by author

Showcase display for various brands’ commodity

“Architecture becomes a furniture.”

K E L L Y

Figure 6.2.4 Inteior illustration of Derive Space Image by author

Open plan setting with light boundary (plantations in garden shop)


197

Figure 6.2.5 Street becomes part of restuarant in Denmark Image by BG Son


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Prototypes for inhabitable roof-top spaces: Playing on the edges in different spatial layout and topography

Derive: has possible infrastructure to grow plantation and greenary Figure 6.2.6 Possible spacial forms for Derive Space Images and models by author


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Figure 6.2.7 Commodities and Brands displayed on different shelves Image by Penda Architecture http://www.dezeen.com/2014/08/27/home-cafe-penda-metal-frame-modular-shelves-planters-china/


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201

P

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n

o

p

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c

The term panoptic means ‘all-seeing’ in Greek, originally developed by French philosopher Michel Foucault in his book, Discipline and Punish. Foucault discussed Jeremy Bentham’s conceptualisation of a Panopticon, a building with a tower at the center from which it is possible to see each cell in which a prisoner or schoolboy is incarcerated.13 Visibility is a trap. Each individual is seen but cannot communicate with the warders or other prisoners. The panopticon induces a sense of permanent visibility that ensures the functioning of power. Bentham decreed that power should be visible yet unverifiable. The prisoner can always see the tower but never knows from where he is being observed. By layering with folding interwoven planes interrupted by voids and crevices, a new monumentality is created which allows flow to all parts of the building and visual connection between programmatic elements. This mini-mall is controlled by vision. All retailers are high branded where people like to show-off. Everyone who is in the panoptic section becomes a prisoner to globalisation and high brands. People make their identity through brands and commodities to elevate their status as seen by others. Though they might not notice the glance from people, they get the feeling of being watched. The spatial layout is influenced from David Chipperfield’s BBC Scotland at Pacific Quay in London. Chipperfield terracing of floor plates creates a physical and visual hierarchy for consumers whilst going up to higher levels.

Figure 6.2.8 Panoptic from different levels in BBC Scotland Image by David Chipperfield http://www.davidchipperfield.co.uk/project/bbc_scotland_at_pacific_quay

13 Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison, (NY : Vintage Books, 1979)


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Brands in Panoptic mini-mall: high-fashion top-brand unique expensive

Figure 6.2.9 Brands for Panoptic space Image by author

Controlled by vision from all angle and visual hierachy

“Architecture becomes a canvas�

S U N G

By layering retails, it frames the spaces and commodities

Figure 6.2.10 Inteior illustration of Panoptic Space Image by author


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Figure 6.2.11 Posh ladies covered with high quality brands Image by Vogue Magazine


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Prototypes for inhabitable roof-top spaces: Playing on the edges in different spatial layout and topography

Panoptic: has possible infrastructure to see commodities or people anywhere Figure 6.2.12 Possible spacial forms for Panoptic Space Images and models by author


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Figure 6.2.13 People become commodity inside different brands Image by Vogue Magazine in ‘High-fashioned dolls’ http://designtaxi.com/news/371611/Models-Dressed-Up-And-Packaged-To-Look-Like-Realistic-Fashion-Dolls/


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Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari introduce the term “rhizome” in “Capitalism and Schizophrenia” (1972-1980) and “A Thousand Plateaus”, where the understanding of rhizome is interpreted from the botanical term of “a plant that can extend itself through its underground horizontal tuber-like root system and able to develop new plants.”14 The term rhizome becomes a concept that generates multiple networks of non-hierarchical systems of connectivity – and as the modern cultural theorist, Joseph Vogl described, the rhizome is a labyrinth without beginning or end. Instead of favouring the conventional system of structured passageways or networks, this in-between or inter-being condition of the rhizome has become an element that is unclear and abstract with “connected points which form connections between things”15, which resists the system of hierarchy and organization. The rhizome is an open-ended network of unforeseen configurations composed of nonhomogenous series or sequences of random connectivity that produce effective systems of network expansion. The Rhizomatic mini-mall is positioned to connect the Panoptic mini-mall and the Dérive mini-mall. It is a meeting point in between these mini-malls so that there are moments for interconnection between different groups of consumers. The in-between space becomes truly public for two disconnected mini-malls, and it attempts at a ecological porosity. The envelope’s permeable structure supports the villages of shops and is covered by a porous pattern which conveys the movement of the sea. However in the Rhizomatic mini-mall, half of the space structure is in a different type of mesh. The mesh structure is not defined as walls but are suggested by trellises and holds up some greenery, and the accommodation of wildlife and water flows. The spatial orientation and the green spaces encourage consumers to have new relationships. The system is structured by open ended networks which portrays the connection with no hierarchy between people.

Figure 6.2.14

Impression of a maze by obscuring views of its boundaries using combinations of boxed spaces Image by Suppose Design Office http://www.archdaily.com/103092/house-in-fukawa-suppose-design-office/

14 Parr, Adrian, The Deleuze Dictionary, Rev. ed.(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), 231. 15 Ibid, 232.


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Brands in Rhizomatic mini-mall: drinking place to talk confectionary nice dining Figure 6.2.15 Brands for Rhizomatic space Image by author

“Architecture becomes an open urban-park.�

J O H N

Porous facades for maximum visuality

c a f e

HO TE L Figure 6.2.16 Inteior illustration of Rhizomatic Space Image by author

Interlocking spaces of retails will connect the individual shops and minimalls


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Figure 6.2.17 Space for network and relationship. What about Speed dating? Image by Speed dating movie poster http://www.movieposterdb.com/movie/1343110/Speed-Dating.html


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Prototypes for inhabitable roof-top spaces: Playing on the edges in different spatial layout and topography

Rhizomatic: has possible infrastructure to be trapped in a place for lovers, an one-way corridor that people have to contact eachother Figure 6.2.18 Possible spacial forms for Rhizomatic Space Images and models by author


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Figure 6.2.19 Environment that encourage interaction with other people near by Image by ‘Speak’ Dating http://www.meetup.com/fr/PolyglotClub-Paris/events/222215969/


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The contemporary society is addicted to technologies that people see every day. It is a device that has new points of contact with society. It is a representative of people’s eyes, mouth, ears and memory. Because technology replaced what we do in real life, people do not fully engage with each one another. So by enabling secondary objects, that are used frequently in shopping malls and restaurants, such as the table as a device for social interactions. The design probes the possibility to insert digital technologies into a table. In Microsoft Surface Coffee Table and Pizzahut table, these secondary objects can be used as large screens like a tablet. The tablet table enables to make orders when seated and allows indecisive people to discuss without having others to wait in a line. The technology is thought to be an antisocial or a pseudorealm but in this way it could be used in for civic applications and have convenience for a world of technology-addicted people. The interpretation of these examples lead to more experimental outcomes. As the tablet is used as a surface, by installing it to the wall could give more civic interactions and atmospheres that is related to the digital theme. The outer LED touch screen can display the commodities and the inner LED touch screen in the shop can be used by consumers who wants to lay the products like clothing to mix and match before they purchase them. Not only functionally positive, technology can be used for experiential porosity. For instance, in the Russian Pavilion of giant QR code held in Venice in 2012, it allowed users to use their everyday item, smartphones to feel curiosity and mysteries from the spatial qualities. The rooms from wall to ceiling is filled with Quick Respond codes which have an interactive display of technology and users. The smart objects are targeted to the young and innovative members of Downtown. The digital area of the mini-mall will be seducing people that seeks to be in a realm of innovative technologies.

Figure 6.2.20 Digital ordering table in Pizza Hut Image by Chaotic Moon Studio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvT0MCugb58


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Brands in Smart mini-mall: fixing photography/film cell-networks technology Figure 6.2.21 Brands for Smart space Image by author

Tight aisles like in a circuit labyrinth

“Architecture becomes a screen�

LED panels or screens displays

Figure 6.2.22 Inteior illustration of Smart Space Image by author


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Figure 6.2.23 Getting information from QR code to Smart phones Image by Arch-predmet http://www.arch-predmet.com/en/sites/default/files/imagecache/714x447/news/13.JPG


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Prototypes for inhabitable roof-top spaces: Playing on the edges in different spatial layout and topography

Smart: has possible infrastructure to have vibrant neon-city inside the mall Figure 6.2.24 Possible spacial forms for Smart Space Images and models by author


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Figure 6.2.25 Information and advertisement shown in digital projection Image by BG Son


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In Paul Virilio’s 1977 essay entitled Speed and Politics, the french philosopher makes a compelling case for an interpretation of society in the context of velocity. ‘Dromos’ is Greek for road, but Virilio takes it to mean the activity of race.16 Regarding the notion of speed, the dromologic mini-mall is a big loop constituting the form of a ‘Demo-drome’, where ‘Demo’ means human and ‘Drome’ means race. As the distance of the human race course is long, it has two moving walkways parallel to each other. Moving walkways are usually seen in airports and stations. It normally function as a flat escalator to speed the travellers to get in time, but in the mini-mall, the moving walkways are for bargain hunters whose time is essence in shopping. In between the race course, clusters of shops are interlocked so that inside the shop the speed slows down comparing to the speed in the loop. These clusters are in relation to high to medium speed commodity which hold fast food products and goods for sales. The stores all have storefronts so that in the human race course, people are able to briefly scan items through window shopping. These themed mini-malls enhance the quality of both public and shopping spaces without detracting from the mall’s commercial performance. The question arose in response to the privatisation of public space, and subsequent demise of a truly public realm. Because of this, the privatised mall has become an overly controlled interior public space which isolates itself from its urban context and places limitations on public behaviour and practices to vitalise the mall. By providing spaces for consumers to be in a socially active public realm, it makes a successful ‘Anthropological’ ‘third place’ for people to breathe in the cold urban life.

Figure 6.2.26 Moving walkway in Tube station Images by London King’s Cross tube station http://yizhivika.com/tag/travelator/

16 Parr, Adrian, The Deleuze Dictionary, Rev. ed.(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), 231.


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Prototypes for inhabitable roof-top spaces: Playing on the edges in different spatial layout and topography

Dromology: has possible infrastructure to be trapped in a place for lovers, an one-way corridor that people have to contact eachother Figure 6.2.27 Possible spacial forms for Dromologic Space Images and models by author


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Figure 6.2.28 Brands for dromologic space Image by author

Figure 6.2.29 On-to-go food for fast people Image by Auckland Daily Photo http://aucklanddailyphoto.com

Brands in Dromologic mini-mall: fast window shopping easy daily


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6.3 IMAGES


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Normal retail shop

Addition of retail shops

Figure 6.3.1 Illustations of interlocked volumes Image by author

Figure 6.3.2 Circulation: red-vertical, light grey-horizontal, blue-vertical and horizontal Image by author

Interlocking of retail shops

Interlocking and additions of retail shops

Interlocking volumes

CIRCULATION


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Figure 6.3.3 Perspective view form harbour/Hilton hotel Image by author


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Figure 6.3.4 Perspective view form Bakery Image by author


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Figure 6.3.5 Long sectional view: day time Image by author


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Figure 6.3.6 Close-up of long sectional view Image by author


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Figure 6.3.7 Close-up of long sectional view 2 Image by author


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Figure 6.3.8 Long sectional view: night time Image by author


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Figure 6.3.9 Close-up of long sectional view Image by author


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Figure 6.3.10 Perspective view on event space: cross Image by author


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Figure 6.3.11 Perspective view on event space: long Image by author


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6.4 FUTURE PROJECTION

Figure 6.4.1 Sketch of the bus route from Auckland council’s proposal (Downtown Framework) Image by author


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Figure 6.4.2 Sketch of future Tram lane Image by author

Figure 6.4.3 Underpass from queen street to existing britomart underpass Image by author


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Figure 6.4.4 Future waterfront extension: activating the waterfront will provide social interaction and vitalising practices Image by author


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7 C O N C L U S I O N

Well-designed public spaces can bring people together. It provides the opportunity for people to meet and interact, regardless of age, gender, ethnic origin, etc. The regeneration of a shopping mall functions like a public space, contributes to the increase of social cohesion, tolerance, and solidarity, and reduces possibility of conflict. It also provides opportunity to held social events and interchanges, and supports the social life of communities. The social value lies in its contribution to encourage people’s attachment to a place and the possibilities to interact with other people. “Places can provide opportunities for social interaction, social mixing, and social inclusion, and can facilitate the development of community ties.”17 The thesis explored how to make an urbanized shopping mall more public and communal, adapting spaces for different types of practices into Auckland’s Downtown Shopping centre could be the first step to build up a more vibrant shopping mall atmosphere. Hence thesis asked: how can we regenerate a mall as an incubator (catalyst) for social and civic life so that it creates a revitalising atmosphere? The play of s(m)all inversion by de-malling and breaking up into small shops of villages enhances the quality of civic places without detracting from the mall’s commercial performance however it remains creative, unpredictable to qualify its nature. Rather than trying to apply predetermined functions and provide a definite answer the to the question from the thesis of how the mall become revitalising with urban open spaces and what they are for, the thesis has left some parts untouched

17 Worpole, K. & Knox, K. The Social Value of Public Spaces (York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2007).


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so that the questions remain open. People are all different, and they act, experience, and feel differently. There are many ways for people to enjoy the freedom of public space. Urban public spaces are contingent. They are formed with tensions and contradictions of civic life. However the spaces can retract people through mechanics of behaviours of social groups, focusing less on the practical forms of place or social context. The play of social practices can visualise the urban settings and for an understanding of their performance. I hope this thesis could help not only the owner of the site, Precincts, but also the urban developers in the CBD to fulfil the need of an urban public dimension in this privatised atmosphere of city life. Though my thesis deals with only a small proportion of the city, it can provide liveliness and welcomes people18, a point of development which could be spread across the city. The quality of its public space reflects the quality of life of a city (Carr, et.al, 1992). Public space becomes the stage of the public social life where the social interaction and everyday experiences take place. Therefore, the regeneration of Downtown shopping centre has generally assessed by its capacity in facilitating common and social features.

18

Gehl, Jan. Cities for people. (Washington, DC: Island press, 2010)


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B I B L I O G R A P H Y BOOKS Allen, Stan. Points + lines: diagrams and projects for the city (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999). Alexander, Christopher, The Nature of Order: Book one (Berkeley, Calif.: Center for Environmental Structure 2002), 195. Augé, Marc, Non-places, (London; NY : Verso 2008). 2nd English language ed.. 6. Beaumont, Constance, & Tucker, Leslie . Big-box sprawl (and how to control it). (Municipal Lawyer, 2002) Bernald Tschumi, ed., “Preface.” in Tschumi Le Fresnoy Architecture In/ Between ( New York: Monacelli Press, 1999), 15. Bernald Tschumi, ed., The Architectural Project of Le Fresnoy Bernard Tschumi.” in Tschumi Le Fresnoy Architecture In/Between ( New York: Monacelli Press, 1999),37 Bohl, Charles. Place Making: Developing Town Centers, Main Streets, and Urban Villages. (Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute, 2002). Carr, Stephen. Public Space. (England: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Certeau, Michel de. The practices of everyday life (University of California Press, 1988) Coleman, Peter. Shopping Environments: evolution, planning and design (Oxford: Architectural Press, 2006). Crawford, Margaret. “The World in a Shopping Mall” in Shopping as an entertainment experience (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington books, 2007). Crawford, Margaret. Everyday Urbanism, (The Monacelli Press; Expanded Ed edition December 23, 2008) Dovey, Kim. “Inverted city” in Framing places-mediating power in built


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form, (New York: Routledge, 1999) Dunham-Jones, Ellen and Williamson, John. Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban design solutions for redesigning suburbs. (USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2009), 161. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison, (NY : Vintage Books, 1979) Farrelly, Elizabeth. Blubberland: The dangers of happiness. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008). Fong, Polly. “What makes big dumb bells a mega shopping mall?” in 4th International Space Syntax Symposium (London: Space Group Publications, 2003), 10. Gehl, Jan. Cities for people. (Washington, DC: Island press, 2010). George Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society - An Investigation into the hanging Character of Contemporary Social Life. (Pine Forge Press. Revised edition published 1996.) Gross, Jon. “The “Magic of the Mall”: An Analysis of Form, Function, and Meaning in the Contemporary Retail Built Environment” in Annals of the Association of American Geographers 83, no. 1 (1993), 40. Gruen, Victor & Smith, Larry, Shopping towns USA, (Ny: Reinhold, 1960), 24. Hall, Edward. T. The Hidden Dimension, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969) Hardingham, Samantha. Bernard Tschumi: Parc de la Villette: SuperCrit #4 (Routledge, 2011) Hardingham, Samantha, and Kester Rattenbury. Bernard Tschumi : Parc de la Villette (NY : Routledge, 2011) Henri Lefebvre. Everyday life in the modern world. (New York: Harper, 1971), 25. Herwig, Oliver, Dream worlds: Architecture and Entertainment (Prestel Publishing, 2006) Holl, Steven. Parallax (Basel: Birkhauser-Publishers for Architecture, 2000) Jacobs, Allen. Great Streets. (USA: The MIT Press, 1993), 16. Karrholm, Mattias. Retailising space. Architecture, retail and the territorialisation of public space (London: Ashgate, 2012).


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Kayden, Jerold S. Privately Owned Public Space: The New York Experience (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 2000). Kelver, Ann De. Experience shopping (Tielt: Lannoo Publishers, 2008). Kern, Kathleen. ‘Heterotopia of the theme park street’ Part 3: The Mall as agora in Heterotopia and the City: Public Space in a postcivil society (London: Routledge, 2008). Koolhaas, Rem. Project on the City II: The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping (Taschen; 1St Edition edition, 2002) Oldenburg, Ray, The Great Good Place, (New York: Marlowe & Company, 1991) Mackay, John Donald. Walking around Town: Planning for Pedestrians in New Zealand.Wellington: Town and Country Planning Division, (Ministry of Works and Development, 1977). MacKeith, Margaret, Shopping arcades (Mansell Publishing LTD, 1985), 5. Mean, Melissa & Tims, Charlie. People make places: Growing the public life of cities. (Domus, September 2005) Miller, D., Jackson, P., Thrift, N., Holbrook, B., and Rowlands, M. Shopping, Place, and Identity. (Oxon: Routledge, 1998). Milles, Steven. Consumption spaces (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publications, 2010). Pallasmaa, Juhani. “An Architecture of the Seven Senses” in Questions of perception: Phenomenology of Architecture (San Francisco, CA: William Stout, 2006). Parr, Adrian, The Deleuze Dictionary, Rev. ed.(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), 231. Raymond Ledrut “speech and the silence of the City,” in the city and the sign: an introduction to urban semiotics, ed. Mark Gottdeiner and Alexandros Langopoulos (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 133. Robert J. Shepherd, When Culture goes to Market: space, place, and identity in an urban marketplace, (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 6. Rowe, Colin and Slutzky, Robert. Transparency, (Basel: Birkhauser, 1997). Scharoun, Lisa. America at the mall: the cultural role of a retail utopia (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 2012). Smiley, David J. Sprawl and Public Space: Redressing the Mall. (Washington, D.C.: National Endowment for the Arts. 2002), 24.


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Steve Miles, Spaces for consumption, 1st ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2010), 7. Stevens, Quentin. Ludic Space: exploring the potential of public spaces. (New York: Routledge, 2007). Tuan, Y.F. Space and Plance: The Perspective of Experience. (Univeristy of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1977), 10. Tschumi, Bernard. Event-cities: praxis (Cambridge, Mass : MIT Press, 1994) Tschumi, Bernard, and Joseph Abram. Tschumi Le Fresnoy: Architecture In/ between (NY:Monacelli Press, 1999) Underhill, Paco. Why We Buy: the Science of Shopping. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). Venturi, Robert, “Inside and Outside” in Complexity and contradiction in architecture (NY: Museum of Modern Art; distributed by Doubleday, 1966)

ARTICLES Cortes, Juan Antonio. “Building the Mould of Space” in El croquis:Aires Mateus 2002-2011. n.154, (Madrid:Spain, January 2011). 21-41 Don Mitchell, “The End of Public Space? People’s Park, Definitions of the Public, and Democracy” in Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 85, No. 1. (Mar., 1995), 108-133. Goodspeed, L. (2005). ‘De-malling’ of America might be next big retail trend. Boston Business Journal, Sep 23. Gibson, Anne. “$35m spent on properties as rail project gathers speed” in The New Zealand Herald (Auckland: The New Zealand Herald, 26 May 2014). Gibson, Anne. “Options for Downtown mall wide open” in The New Zealand Herald (Auckland: The New Zealand Herald, 7 April 2007). Niall, Todd. “New push for early auckland rail start” in Radio New Zealand News.(Auckland:Radio New Zealand News, 26 May 2014) Orsman, Bernard. “New property plan for downtown” in The New Zealand Herald. (Auckland:The New Zealand Herald, 9 May 2014) Russell, James S. “Architectural Record.” Ever-changing Pavilion 189, no. 1

(2011): 125-135.

Valley, Matt. The remalling of America. National Real Estate Investor, (May, 2002).


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Zukin, Sharon and Manguire, Jennifer Smith. “Consumer and consumption” in Annual review of sociology, no. 30 (Annual Reviews, February, 2004), 173-197

HAND BOOKS ULI. Shopping Centre Development Handbook. (Washington, D.C: Urban Land Institute, 1978). ICSC. Certified Development, Design and Construction Professional (CDP) Handbook (2009).

THESIS Blue, Zachary. P(a)lace of consumption. (Auckland: Victoria University, 2012) Sayers, Janet Grace. Small Treats: Retail Service Work from a consumer’s perspective. (Auckland: The University of Auckland, 2003)

VIDEO Whyte, William. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces http://vimeo.com/6821934

WEBPAGES “Auckland city heritage walks.” Heart of the City accessed April 10,2014, http://www.hotcity.co.nz/aucklandcityheritagewalksshore.pdf Auckland Council, Downtown-Auckland media presentation slide (2014) Auckland Council, Downtown Framework (September 11, 2014) accessed November 10, 2014, http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/planspoliciesprojects/CouncilProjects/citycentretransformation/Pages/Downtown. aspx Auckland Council, Waterfront plan (2012) accessed March 25, 2014, http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/planspoliciesprojects/plansstrategies/theaucklandplan/Pages/theaucklandplan.aspx Archdaily. Casa dos Cubos / EMBAIXADA arquitectura. (2012, 27 Jan) http://www.archdaily.com/202783/casa-dos-cubos-embaixada-arquitectura/ Lowrie, Matt. CRL back in the spotlight. (2014, 27 May) http://transportblog.co.nz/2014/05/27/crl-back-in-the-spotlight/


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Lowrie, Matt. “Getting on with the CRL.” Transport blog (April 14, 2014), Accessed June 4, 2014. http://transportblog.co.nz/2014/04/14/getting-onwith-the-crl Ross, Kritiana. “Flashback: Sarphatistraat Offices / Steven Holl Architects” (24 Jan 2012). ArchDaily. Accessed 07 May 2014. <http://www.archdaily. com/?p=201033> The Bob Dey Property Report. Councillors stand fast against more downtown signage. (2005, 20 Sept) http://www.propbd.co.nz/councillors-standfast-against-more-downtown-signage/ Steuteville, R. How to mitigate the impact of big box stores. (2008) Accessed July 15, 2014. http://newurbannetwork.com/tools/howto-reports/9445/how-mitigateimpact-big-box-stores SCHOUTEN, HANK . NZ needs more shopping malls, study says. (2013, 21 May) http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8697205/NZ-needsmore-shopping-malls-study-says William Whyte, film on The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces http://vimeo. com/6821934 Worpole, Ken & Knox, Katharine (23 April 2007) the social value of public spaces http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/social-value-public-spaces


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Mid-semester Crit Image by author


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