How Am I Supposed To "Live-Work-Play" In These Conditions?
As you’ve all likely heard by now, the traditional American shopping mall is a dying breed. These “junkspaces” that have been used as centers of commerce for almost a century have become obsolete with the rise of internet shopping and home delivery services. We can already see how several cities across America have made attempts to revitalize their malls by converting entire sections of the building into apartments and offices.
This crafting of a “live-work-play” environment could prove to be an effective way to resolve the dilemma of the dying mall. With this solution, they essentially become a small city in themselves where the occupants can find everything that they need within walking distance of their front door, almost entirely removing the need for a vehicle in their daily lives. In addition, this could be an easy and effective transition seeing how there is already plenty of parking and all the site disturbance has been done.
A multitude of malls across the country have been abandoned for years now and have fallen into complete disrepair. Many have been purchased by Amazon to demolish and replace with fulfillment centers that are up to a million square feet. For the ones that are still salvageable though, could renovation and repurposing provide a healthy alternative to the “New Urbanism” that was discussed in class?
Zach,
ReplyDeleteAdapting and reusing buildings is certainly a conversation that needs to be held more, but I worry what the abandoned malls could become. There is the possibility that these new "live-work-play" environments could become more junkspace. By Rem's definition, junkspace is always interior, and if we contain people into the vast interiority of the American mall, we could just making the same mistake again. I think we should be reusing the malls to support community, but there a few important questions to consider. How does the new community connect with the broader city, socially and logistically? How does one experience the outdoors in this renovated interior environment? What is the role of commerce in this space?
Zach,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Geoffrey's comment about needing to talk more about reuse of abandoned buildings. I think phrasing it as a "city within a city" is a good analogy to use. When we restore a buildings old use into something different, we want it to interact with the community, not just for the present, but last well into the future.
Zach,
ReplyDeleteIt's for sure weird and tacky: abandoned malls. They don't decompose because their entire existence was birthed from artificiality. Consumerism. Convenience. It's all a ploy on the mind of the human to mold and shape them as the gears that keep the machine going. If malls are dying, then the next thing they warehouse will be something to exploit people still. It is the way of our current society.