Shopping Centre Architecture

Hello,

yesterday I’ve been to Dublin to visit Dundrum Town Centre and to check if the store I worked for was ready to open tomorrow as planned.

I have to say that the structure is really impressive, massive, well studyied and good materials made.

I can understand who says that it seems a little bit out of the town context – despite I don’t see how we could expect anything different from it now…. – but the internal site is one of the best I have ever visited.

The only thing I am concerned about is that the works appear to be very far from being completed and I wonder how it will be able to open tomorrow morning at 10!!

I am glad this is not my case but I found that the fit out of the majority of the stores is very behind as well as the entire centre’s one (the front pavement was not finished even today)

Anyway I am sure that everything will be fine and people will enjoy it.

In end….I really enjoyed Dublin!

Ciao

Lya 🙂

I hope it all went well for everyone today. There are floor plans of the centre doing the rounds on the email, and will be heading there myself for a look soon. I know the engineers were on site all night for the last few weeks, and especially last night to make sure it was ok for opening. Betcha it was bedlam!!But am very interested in seeing the finished product.

Was out there myself on Friday night, and have to agree the heat was unbelievable.Especially in the main body of the centre, somehow a good few of the shops were a bit cooler-I would have thought it would be the other way around.It was late evening when I was there, and dark outside, and I thought that the main parts of the centre were very dull.I know it’s bright during the day due to the glass atria, but for some reason it seems very dull at night in the main passages of the centre. Maybe it was just my imagination……It also seems as though it was opened in a great rush, could they not have waited the month or 2 more, and opened the cinema and all the other shops aswell, all at once?Odd…

To give you all some idea, where my comments were actually coming from, I put this much together. I have volunteered my services from time to time, to help out with quite a bit of technological scribbling, so getting to grips with a little bit of Enviro-Techno speak, here at Archiseek, is just a slightly different flavour of this. At a stage in the future, when I have developed a serious point of view, on Environmental Architecture, I may be just prompted to structure something more comprehensive on the topic. But presently, it is more to do with a hobby, than anything else.

System-ness, is a huge topic of debate in technological circles presently, because, who is going to do it? Who is going to drive it? Certainly not the Russians. With the Asian’s at the end of their ‘technological development’ golden era, with Europe in decline in the area of scientific and technological development for decades, and with the United States kind of struggling desperately, agains the cost of doing anything ‘white-collar’ at all, on its soil, I would suspect, that someplace like India while be a superpower in the coming decades. 🙂 Dunno, maybe Kenya or someplace too, if they got their hands on some heavily discounted PCs and some bandwidth. Basically, systems as we know them today are radically different from what they were even 10 years ago. They have become especially complex, and hard to achieve, except for the best, biggest and most well organised corporations – the MicroSofts etc. There is really not all that much competition anymore, at the ‘seriously large and tricky’ end of the project spectrum. The evolution of Project Management in all fields of technological contracting, has meant that projects are ‘defined’ from the outset,.. which has the unfortunate consequence, that very few people, are looking at things from end to end anymore at all. I think, you just need this ‘end-to-end’ perspective, to look at any large inter-dependent system-ness problems, the likes of which are often found in architecture. I like Jeff Bezos’s comment, the founder and still current CEO of Amazon.com, who believes, if you cannot feed a ‘team’ with two pizzas, then that team is too big. Amazon, realised early that it didn’t have any huge single advantage over its competitors, so it decided to distribute lots of ‘small teams’ amongst lots and lots of small projects, to innovate and improve its technologies. Amazon, in turn, licenses a lot of the technology it develops, to other smaller web developers, who would not have the resources to develop as such themselves, but find very clever ways to employ Amazon’s cool features for their own needs. In other words Amazon, Google, Yahoo etc, are getting more and more into the fields of research and development, which is some positive outcome, post dot.com.

What is the point of my tour of global scientific research? Well this,… expect in the future, more and more of the systems embedded in buildings especially, to become part of the Internet in future. Even light bulbs in future, will alert the Electrical contractor, before they blow, and send a schematic telling the technician where exactly in the building to find the bulb that is ‘about’ to blow. In future, you will probably call a programmer instead of a plummer, to fix a leak! 🙂 Bandwidth is in oversupply, storage, computational resources are all way over supplied,… but the punitive information that systems embedded in our buildings, currently send back to base, is like is was back in the middle of the last century. And even much of that punitive amount of information, currently floating around, through the fibers embedded in a building, is discarded by the systems reading that information. I know it may sound a little bit like ‘Minority Report’, but, I am wishing there was more serious review of the designs of these large centers, into how they function from a ‘System-ness’ point of view. Environmental is just an aspect of this larger holistic system-ness view of a large built complex. I did a medium-sized summary of the Dubai Conference Centre here:

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3516

Enjoy, garethace.

Sorry I have to take exception to some of the issues raised by Graham

The centre does not integrate itself to the village. It is an internalised structure and is typical of suburban malls everywhere; it is just larger and taller.

The centrepiece (atrium) is very poor with visibility clouded by large white ramps, escalators and balconies.

In general the design is uncoordinated and lacks an appropriate scale to either the car or the person.

I just think that most of the major achievements, which both Architects and Town Planners have ‘claimed’ as achivements in their respective fields, have gone very much hand in hand, with the commercial side of the equation – namely the explosion in service-industry related activities, and usually just pure exploitation of the public. This is a very ‘compartmentalised’ way of looking at the environment I think.

Large commerce has been a good client, yes, from the point of view, of building large shining monstrosities, but useless from some points of view. … Big commerce, does what big commerce does,… it is like a jugernaut when it gets into the mode of focusing money on a large project or undertaking – then it has no middle gears unfortunately. I find that an awful lot of the service industry growth and property development, has gone very under-regulated.

Like the Ancient Roman’s would rely on a good day out at the events in the Collusium, with the lions and tigers etc, to boost their mood somewhat… the modern explosion in the service industry does quite the same sort of thing for city inhabitants, it would appear, distracting you from a lot of basic short comings in the system at present, and sticking a fresh tasty bagel in your mouth, telling you to, ‘Just cheer up, and get over yourself’. The Collusium and such examples in the past, may have integrated more into the urban fabric though, and provided lasting urban icons. I am not so sure, that many of the urban designers in Ireland, have gotten their heads fully around the scale of this problem in Ireland yet, especially, if some of the model designs and proposals I have seen, are anything to go by.

So given, that the modern city dweller has been snagged into this inescapable consumer net, and the LUAS, new public spaces and so on, are just more and more sophisticated ways to get you on board the big ‘eat’ and the big ‘spend’. The fact, that so many architects and town planners, have adopted this service industry boom, as evidence of exceptional work done in their fields, is I suppose, a very notable example of their willingness, to use the explosion to generate some good self-centred PR hype – but usually that is all. It still doesn’t convince me, that any Irish Architect has sucessfully managed to even look at this problem, and enlarge the debate to any significant degree – there just seems to be one very sucessfully packaged solution. The client – Commerce is the major player behind all of this. The trouble for me, with the way environmental designers talk about themselves and their creations nowadays,…

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3818

Is really their inability to place things in any social context, that is, Ireland in 2005. They do mention poverty related social problems, which plagued public space in past decades, but everyone seems to be afraid to point any finger, at our recent wealth bubble, and the social issues it has raised too. You have to look at Liffey Board Walk, Wolfe Tone Square, O’Connell Street, Henry Street, Hueston Station, IFSC, Dundrum and everything else, within the context of a city, which has become very much geared up behind a booming service industry sector.

Brian O’ Hanlon.

I listened to a young member of the architectural profession, a number of years back, trying to argue that the Awear store on Grafton Street, could actually become a ‘calming oasis’, amongst the bustling thoroughfare of Grafton Street. I guess alarm bells should have been ringing in my ears back then – but at the time, I thought nothing of it. That was before the country got some fast money. I guess every young designer, is keen to jump on an opportunity to prove their ‘design talent’. Indeed, that young designer could well have been me, if I could get my nice renderings together quick enough for a design review! 🙂

Grafton Street itself, remember is an early example of an unholy marriage between Planning and commercialism in Ireland. Grafton Street, to this day, neatly encapsulates that earnest and well-meant aspiration about the provision of ‘public open space’ being good for all. But for me it also demonstrates, people who pawn a high-margin commodity, like the Flower sellers, command the ability to block the road, so a pedestrian street doesn’t work so pedestrian friendly anymore. Take motor cars out of the equation, and it makes the conjestion even worse! I just love the way, the flower sellers managed to the pick the points, where they could create the maximum amount of pedestrian conjestion!

Lets just cut to the chase here, the modern shopping centre is another extension of the advertising campaign, from the worlds of TV, radio and Cyberspace, coming through into the physical world. The crack between real and virtual worlds has opened so much wider nowadays. The two worlds seem to knit together into one homogenous fabric of existence. Just as more and more chunks of physical world, move into cyberspace, a lot of Cyberspace would appear to be moving back into the physical world. Urban design and architecture, have both emerged with a brand new manifesto – because they offer a large canvas – a new kind of ‘Media Space’ as it were. I am afraid though, the Environmental professional is begining to look like a puppet bouncing up and down on these ever strengthening ‘Cybernetic’ strings. As if you went to shop, for more or less the same reasons, you went into a Church or other kind of sacred space, to make amends with your Creator and quietly complemate your existence? ? ? The message has become very garbled, religion and commerce, professionalism and exploitation,… as often happens, much is lost, in the digital translation. The shopping centre, like any good advertising campaign, tries desperately to bring commercialism, to some kind of higher plane.

Sure, Commerce, as the client, can afford to pay, those trendy polo neck wearing designers, in the ‘Architectural Review’ Magazine, to clad new commercial pleasure boats, with some kind of austerity and ‘calm reflective meaning’. But errrh,… sorry, I am simply not buying your brand, I just prefer the honesty of the Roman solution. Millenia later, we can be honest, and say that the Romans built the Collusium to keep the masses contented – there was absolutely no higher motive behind it – absolutely no ambiguity. It is a sign of the strength of that culture rather than its weakness, that it was able to make such an honest statement, all those many years ago. Shopping centres are trying to look reserved, astute and smart,… like some high powered Calvin Klein branding strategy, to corner a very lucrative demographic,… the austerity, plainess and understatement is carefully aimed to mask the actual intent – to bring in the real dollars.

I wish designers and planners would have a less compartmentalised view of their world. Not to try and operate in a vacuum, and talk about things like Urban space without reference to the world, Ireland and the expanding world of Cyberspace, as they are today, and how they relate with each other.

Brian O’ Hanlon.

@garethace wrote:

the austerity, plainess and understatement is carefully aimed to mask the actual intent – to bring in the real dollars.

But of course this is the case; this has always been the case – going back to the mid-19th century if not a lot further. Okay the image stakes have been getting higher and higher in recent times, with an accompanying detachment from the outside world, but I suppose key to all of this is how much of it you choose to accept or ignore.
It’s up to the individual whether to support these places or not, or how much of the ‘dream’ you wish to enter into; whether you go the whole way or just stay at the margins looking in at everyone else, or just occassionally ‘indulge’ in the experience.
A lot is made of shopping malls and consumerism and how unhappy we supposedly all are – at the end of the day it’s up to yourself, the individual. Fashion palaces for 15-34 females most certainly do not cater for society as a whole. You have the choice to ignore them.

It’s the resulting reduction in choice outside of these places that is the real concern, rather than the image etc generated by them.

At least the one good thing Dundrum has brought is the pulling of Luas users down the delightful mainstreet – it’s worth the trip just for that 🙂

@garethace wrote:

Anyhow, the other point is simply this, and it does underline, my own lack of focus a bit too. I think, that books about the Dot.com revolution, really good ones, like Amazonia:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565848705/103-5113124-6063846

Have become required reading, for anyone who considers themselves planners, architects, masterplanners and so forth,… anyone who is concerned about the built environment basically. Because in having to define the virutal world of E-tail,.. these tombs, also go into some depth about the physical world that was retail, before the dot.com era.

Gareth for the dotcom not to bomb they needed facilities and development patterns like this http://www.iavi.ie/pvaluer/autumn02/PV%20autumn%20Aerotroppdf.pdf

That never happened because the supply chain simply couldn’t provide the level of services efficiently, I don’t know how many times I have found something on the net at half the price it is at home only to see the delivery cost bring the price higher than it would cost at home.

While I laud your civic thinking the palaces of consumerism have a very large captive audience and a lot of people do really enjoy showing off their purchases from their last visit to the palace. I don’t think we should try to stop these projects I simply feel that where they are located is the key. The Jervis Centre was pivitol in turning around the fortunes of the North inner City. Dundrum is essential to the rates base of Dunlaoghaire Rathdown. Liffey Valley is another story

Some Conclusions?

Okay, here is my best shot.

I received this question recently, while discussing the subject of Internet Commerce at another message board. This guy is from Texas, and he was asking me about something called Push. Bear in mind, that coming from Texas he has probably seen it all, in terms of poor Mexicans skipping over the border, and taking up positions in the service industry, similar to the way Dublin has gone only now.

Push is definately here and only getting bigger – the idea debuted before its time – but the age of computers feeding you content based on your preferences/history is already here.

I am curious, in Ireland, do grocery stores require you to shop with a club card to recieve the lowest price on items? Here in the states, if you don’t use your club card at the grocer, you don’t get the sale price on items and sometimes coupons aren’t accepted. This is all so the supermarket can track your purchases, which help them determine what to stock in the store, what to put on sale, and most importantly, it allows them to send you coupons for specific items to “push” you into buying. For example, they might see that you buy a 16oz can of peaches every week. Next thing you know, you are getting coupons for 50 cents off if you buy TWO 16oz cans… By doing this, grocers very effectively pump up their sales.

Barnes and Nobe bookstore has adopted this method over here in the States as well and require a club card to take advantage of the discount price. It is very convenient, since they record your book purchases, they are able to send you notice when new books in your favorite genres are on sale, or when new books you may have interest in are released.

Basically, in Amazon.com, the main front home page of that web site, hasn’t been ‘touched’ by a human hand in years. Because the idea, is to gather information about everyone, so when you visit Amazon, the web page, will display things, that it ‘thinks’ using Artificial Intelligence, are to your liking. There were some funny things initially, like, if you typed the name of a children’s book, you got up a whole load of flick knives, and numerous other examples. But after a while, the programmers manage to iron out this ‘kinks and wrinkles’. So you are not as aware that it is happening anymore – that is really when it begins to do its job. You can catch a glimpse of that in the Minority Report movie, where the ads on the side of the street change whenever you walk past them, ‘targetting’ you so to speak, and tracking your movements around the modern city. This technology is just going to become more pervasive, sophisticated and powerful. Very soon you will not even notice the jagged edges, that give away ‘its digitally altered’ identity, like at the moment.

All you are seeing with large shopping centres, is the physical world trying desperately to stay abreast of all that has suddenly happened in the past 50 years, in terms of the amount of ‘media’ and messaging available to us, constantly, all our waking hours, every day. The large shopping centre, is like the ‘Cinema Theatre’ equivalent of what you normally just consume through the little screen, the radio sound or the computer monitor, newspaper, magazine etc, etc. I do find it strange how suddenly, young kids have become the target of so much carpet bombing marketing/advertisement campaigns. I am just wondering what kind of relationship the future generations will try to build with all of this media – how will we establish an etiquette to it all? LIke the couple of 12 year old kids in UCG cinema in Parnell Street, have these ‘unlimited card’ things, which allow them to get into movies each week for a cheaper price. Yet, what the cinema is doing, is at the ripe old age of 12, the kids likes, needs and so on, are being recorded onto the system – by the time these kids reach 30 or 40, I am sure sophisticated systems will exist to take advantage of all that data.

Terence Riley, gave this talk at xmas in Trinity:

http://www.irish-architecture.com/aai/events/data/1094589443.html

About how Architecture is somehow ‘losing’ market share, in terms of the information it displays… basically, architecture is just fading into the background altogether, and it is all just big signs and Neon. I do think we have duties in this department certainly, real responsibilities, not to be ‘gullible’ about what is actually happening out there. Given these kids are going to grow up in a time, where ‘Push’ operates in so many ways on everyone. Heck, look at the amount of info, contained about you and me on this message board. What I do know, is that most of us are in a real hurry to black-slap one another and make out like its all a ‘great days work’. But our daily environment is starting to get manichured and wired in ways, we cannot even understand right now. I liked the picture of Nixon, and the microphones. It sort of speaks about the early days of Cyberspace and Cyber-Power, when the world was initially starting to get wired, and understand for the first time, without innocence, that it had deeper effects in terms of how we all live today.

And here we have a group of catives of the new information age?

And finally, I have chosen these Robert Capa photographs, and the David Douglas Duncan portrait of Nixon, is basically, because I wish to imply a feeling of the scale and numbers we are dealing with here – because large numbers and statistical analysis, is really what ‘economics’ is to do with, and this in turn affects our environment.

So lets all say ‘Hurray’ for shopping centres. 🙂 Again, courtesy to both Mr. Capa and Mr. Duncan for taking those photographs.

Brian O’ Hanlon.