Death to the Mall
The selected class reading, Future City, by Frederic Jameson is very thought provoking. We all are aware that the once lively, profitable shopping malls are now either closed or becoming an undesirable place. The escalator made large, multilevel shopping malls profoundly modified the architecture. It denied the relevance of both compartments and
floors in the mall, which an elevator cannot. The seamlessness of the escalator helped grow the desire to shop in a mall. Is there an element of design that could breath life into our malls again like the escalator once did? Can virtual shopping be folded into the mall that changes the experience to be more user-friendly like the escalator? What if VR or interactive store fronts in a mall would enough to bring back the fun of the mall and turn a profit?
I find it interesting how the escalator, being mundane in today’s society, had such a profound impact on not only just the mall but what the mall meant for the changes that occurred to during the turn of the century as vehicles became the primary source of transportation. What new ideas can we come up with today that breathe life back into the mall, such as VR which is changing our society as we know it, and will future generations soon find these designs mundane as well?
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