Inside shopping off shopping

GRADUATION 2014

OFF–SHOPPING SHOPPING

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Studio SPACE

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Interview with Eline Strijkers

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Graduation projects

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• I am my Surroundings

by Qing Liao • A Museum for the Neighbourhood

by Ni Nan • Sorry, we’re working!

by Roy Yin

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Studio URBAN

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Interview with Chris van Duijn

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Graduation projects

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• Void Monologue

by Yuting Guan • MELTING P[L]OT

by Klinphaka Keawcharoen • Reviving the Dead Shopping Mall

by Joanne Smith

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Exhibition space

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INSIDE

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Design for the real world Tutors and Lecturers INSIDE

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Colophon

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Shopping / Off-Shopping magazine # 4

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Table of content

Foreword

by Hans Venhuizen

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One of these changes, the massive shifts in shopping-culture caused in part by the growing influences of new media, was the starting point of this year’s program at INSIDE. In the second half of this publication you will find INSIDE#4 that contains the research results of the INSIDE students on shopping. INSIDE#4 also reveals the phenomenon of “ off-shopping ”, a new perspective on shopping-culture that was introduced by Jan Konings.

INSIDE#4 is introduced by Anne Hoogewoning, INSIDE's theory and writing teacher.

The first part of this publication is actually our last publication INSIDE#5.

This part builds on the various research presented in part #4 and introduces the thoughts and works of our second group of graduation students that we are proud to present. All students started off from the research of the current dynamics in shopping divided into two projects : • the interior public space in a “ soon to be built ” very optimistic development of the FORUM-building in the shopping district of Rotterdam, designed and guided by OMA, and • the re-activation of the partly empty office building KATSHOEK near the center of Rotterdam, guided by DOEPEL&STRIJKERS. In interviews with graduation tutors Chris van Duijn (OMA) and Eline Strijkers (DOEPEL&STRIJKERS) the contexts the students started from are introduced. In the end all students

succeeded to surprise us by the way they developed very personal projects from these starting points and through that, to new perspectives on interior architecture.

Roy Yin carries us along in his ambition to create “ Your next Bürolandschaft ” where all furniture is piled up in an imaginative yet practical way. Qing Liao designed ways for current nomads, such as international students, to be flexible but to create personalized living spaces at the same time. Ni Nan opened the empty office building for the neighbourhood by offering possibilities to locals to exhibit their personal everyday valuables. Klinphaka Keawcharoen has organized a food space not by cultures or cuisines but merely around the cooking devices that are shared. Ewelina Borowiecka has designed a “ romantic spot ” for Rotterdam, a city that is not really known for its romanticism. Yuting Guan used the infrastructure in the new shopping mall to create surprising physical experiences and new perspectives. And finally Joanne Smith dived deep into the history of shopping malls. She revived some of the original idealistic concepts and used these to re-activate a partly empty shopping mall in The Hague.

With their graduation projects this second group of INSIDERS has explored the wide range of future interior architecture. Being specialized in the use of the surroundings, these interior architects can continue to develop into key figures within the processes of spatial change. The interior architect of the future needs to relate to any assignment context, from INSIDE. He / she is not merely the interior decorator of the architectural

house, nor the “ lubricant ” of commercial success, and certainly not a lifestyle stylist. The interior architect reads, identifies and steers the public interior from INSIDE, based on his own observations, on thorough research of the cultural, economic and political context, on sociological and urban design perspectives, on his own artistic vision. As an architect working from the INSIDE out, in all respects, at all levels.

Bringing into play a well-developed awareness of the Real World.

Furthermore this publication shows profiles of this year's INSIDE teachers and an overview of next year’s programme. We hope that you enjoy reading these publications as much as we enjoyed assembling them.

Finally there are many people to thank for cooperating with INSIDE in these publications. First of all, I have to mention all the students at INSIDE who contributed with their texts and projects. Anne Hoogewoning who guided the students through her theory programme. Jan Konings who inspired us with the new phenomenon of off-shopping. Luc Eggenhuizen and Nina Couvert students graphic design at the KABK who brought all the material together in this booklet. And not the least our coordinator Marja van der Burgh and her tireless dedication, who made these publications possible.

Hans Venhuizen The Hague, July 2014

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Foreword

With pride, I would like to introduce the fourth and fifth publication of INSIDE, the Master’s programme in Interior Architecture at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. INSIDE targets the Real World. A world that is changing.

Foreword

INSIDE – Design for the real world

A five-minute walk from Rotterdam Central Station, via the Schieblock and the Mini-mall, Katshoek can easily be reached on foot. The building forms the next logical step in the development of the Zomerhof district. The aim was to give new talent the mental, physical and financial space to develop with the maximum benefits of collective amenities. But the project is not just about giving a helping hand to talent; it also looks at ways to develop new talent, by connecting business, education and innovation in learning trajectories.

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Tutor of the Studio SPACE

Besides hosting and developing talent, Katshoek could also become a multifunctional building. During the year, students worked on the design and development strategy including programming the building with a good financial structure based on the necessity for the social, ecological and economic benefit to be in balance.

In addition, the students were asked to focus on a logical process. They had to start with research based on observations in the neighbourhood in

➁ What is in your opinion the future for the discipline of Interior Architecture ?

What is the ideal profile for an Interior Architect ? And how should education relate to the “ new Interior Architect ” ?

In the near future only one percent of all commissions will be for new buildings. Therefore the interior architect will be challenged to give answers to urgent topical questions in society and to take a meaningful position. Interior architects will have to rethink their position and come up with integral solutions through different scales. Also, they should be able to connect the complex network of techniques, people and money and finally translate that into logical and beautiful spatial designs. Today’s themes give the interior architect the opportunity to move away from the discipline of being the final player in building projects but instead to be the design activist with an initiating role throughout the whole process. Last but not least: the discipline should professionalize and create its own debate about how to make sustainable and smart solutions which add value, by working on designs that create social renewal.

with Eline Strijkers

Interview

Interview with Eline Strijkers DOEPELSTRIJKERS

The main topic of my Studio at INSIDE was to find urgently needed answers for half vacant buildings in the inner city. The students have worked on a real assignment “ Reactivating KATSHOEK ” a monumental building of the sixties in Rotterdam designed by the architect Hugh Maaskant.

With Katshoek as a starting point, a sustainable and social development of the structure needed to be examined by the students; they were asked to formulate propositions for the district, for the building itself and also on a product level.

order to define their ambitions, goals and criteria for their design. And before implementing their observations into a design for the Katshoek building, the students were asked to complete a theoretical framework as a starting point for a generic design. This generic design was finally implemented at the specific location of Katshoek. During each step in the process the students had to show their awareness of how the design proposal relates to the aspects of time, money and stakeholders.

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➀ Can you elaborate on your studio topic ? What was the brief ? Why did you select it and what would you like to achieve with the assignment ?

Qing Liao

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I am my Surroundings

Based on the above mentioned observations I have chosen the sentence “ I am my Surroundings ”, which is both an analysis of how people deal with their surroundings, as well an invitation to improve those dealings. Within this theme I focus on the relationship between space and the following three aspects : Identity, Daily Routine and Bodily Behaviour.

The first-hand investigation of my design was a study about the usage of their personal living space by five international students living in the Netherlands for nearly two years. They are my fellow students at the Master of Interior Architecture at the KABK. How the surroundings of this typical group of urban nomads and their

For my graduation project I designed four flexible interior systems for urban nomads.

They can choose a system and develop it in such a way that it provides the customized interior that suits them best.

Being able to create this highly personal “ home ” anywhere, the urban nomads can express their identity, daily routine and behaviour in every location they inhabit.

Qing Liao

I am my Surroundings

physical existences affect each other, provides reference for the MANUAL I created, which aims to turn urban nomads’ surroundings into their “ home ”, in as many locations as possible.

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Qing Liao

Due to the increasing nomadic and solitary conditions of contemporary urban life, travelling people often feel the house they are currently living in is always like a stranger who never knows who they are and what they need. Those are the moments in which travellers miss their home, the place that understands their very unique body language. There, they are free to behave as they wish.

Qing Liao

I am my Surroundings

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Velcro Pin INSIDE Graduation 2014

Qing Liao

I am my Surroundings

Elastic Pocket

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A Museum for the Neighbourhood

Museums are usually platforms which display various collections, ranging from traditional art, potteries, cultural history to science. But museums can also be public meeting spaces with high value from a social and cultural perspective.

Focusing on this added potential of a museum, this could be one option to activate the vacant office.

For my Museum for the Neighbourhood I propose to create a physical platform for people to display their personal belongings, their personal themes, and experience the process of building up a new kind of museum. The content of most exhibitions in most museums is isolated from the city. Usually an exhibition is not open to public participation

Ni Nan

A Museum for the Neighbourhood

The new museum will become a meeting place where people of the neighbourhood would share their memories, opinions and ideas. Although it would be a miniature space, focusing on the personal objects of people living in the neighourhood, it might soon gain a larger social and cultural value.

Above all, I like to fullfill my personal desire : turn everybody into a curator.

All people could have their own exhibition in the transitional spaces of the vacant offices. In this way the Museum for the Neighbourhood would become the bridge between the people and the vacant offices.

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Ni Nan

Ni Nan

The Dutch office market this year has the highest vacancy rate in Europe : 27% over six million square meters is not used. A fairly large part of the vacant office spaces is only half vacant, and as a result the overall building condition is still good. Instead of waiting for new tenants, reuse of vacant office spaces could bring new opportunities for the buildings themselves, and could create new opportunities for the development of the surrounding area and even for the city.

Ni Nan

A Museum for the Neighbourhood

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A Museum for the Neighbourhood

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Roy Yin

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Sorry, we’re working !

In my plan – to design an unshrinkable office – I will focus on facilitating a space for the basic needs of a functional office by using every inch in the From the industrial age to the most efficient way possible. In 1980s a fixed workstation with an other words : to create a dense immovable desk and a chair was working space. This space the symbol of one’s office space. should allow people to work From the eighties onwards and meet, even in corners and new developments, such as above each other, in order to communication technology create an overall flexible working and internet, contributed to landscape for everyone and to the changing needs of working open up new possibilities for spaces. Slowly they changed new working conventions. from fixed to flexible working conventions. The downside of this development was that many office buildings became vacant.

In general, office space is shrinking. Companies reduce their working space, thus cutting costs. If they will continue to maximize the saving, office space will shrink to its final limit. In the meantime this residue space could be used for lively programs. The distance between a diversified life space and the workplace would be just one step away. Hence, office buildings would come back to life. Is it possible to design an office landscape that is unshrinkable, offering a better suited space for working and informal meetings than

Roy Yin

Sorry, we’re working !

the conventional office, while creating extra spaces for various lively programs ?

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Roy Yin

Let us think about an image of an open office. Chairs and desks, the oldest combination in all offices, is still the everlasting, general view on how an office space looks, or should look like.

However, this image may be modified in the future.

Roy Yin

Sorry, we’re working !

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Sorry, we’re working !

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The project is surrounded by four unique streets and with its connections to the Forum building, which is hidden from the streets behind a ring of existing modern monuments. This is very important to the success of the project.

In the second semester we focused on the central volume of the Forum building. The first year Master’s students were challenged to design facilities for the Boijmans Van Beuningen Archive building, the much debated project in the Museum Park, within the Forum building. The result will be spectacular and would fit so well in the project.

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Tutor of the Studio URBAN

For the graduating students we decided to concentrate on the main feature of the Forum building ; the central and public spaces inside the building. Large public spaces inside buildings usually all look the same and lack a public vibe. In our project the graduating students were asked to make a complete proposal for the public spaces and to consider what the best program, circulation, concept and design would be for these spaces.

The projects are turning out to be very different and each is unique.

Boundaries between disciplines are fading. Architecture, industrial design, interior design, fashion design are entering each other domains. This is of course very interesting, as different approaches to design are being tested.

So the interior designer has to be a complete designer, understanding the whole process from urban design level to the product design level. They should be aware of today’s themes and reflect on them at an abstract level.

To be integrated into to the essence of a project, the interior designers must ensure they are not reduced to just becoming “ stylists ”. When we look for interior designers at our office, it is difficult to find people who can work and think on all scales and translate the essence of a project into the interior design, without adding another layer to the whole project.

On the other hand skills and specialisms are qualities which can make a designer unique. I do hope that students at the end of their studies have been able to study and work with materials, details, new technologies and handcraft which stimulate them to translate unique ideas into a unique design.

with Chris van Duijn

Interview

Interview with Chris van Duijn OMA

We decided to take one of our current OMA projects as the basis for this year’s Studio projects at INSIDE. It is the mixed use Forum project which will be located in the very centre of Rotterdam. As the central theme this year was the “ Shopping Street ”, we were interested for students to look critically at our own project, and its relations with the surrounding shopping streets.

➁ What is in your opinion the future for the discipline of Interior Architecture ?

What is the ideal profile for an Interior Architect ? And how should education relate to the “ new Interior Architect ” ?

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➀ Can you elaborate on your studio topic ? What was the brief ? Why did you select it and what would you like to achieve with this assignment ?

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Void Monologue

The mechanisms of the circulation space as “ public space ” in shopping malls are designed mainly for efficiency and financial profit, instead of being a pleasant or comfortable space for the public to pass through. In this way the circulation space does not meet the real needs of human beings : people are not merely “ shoppers ” or “ consumers ”, neither are “ part of a crowd ” ; they have different interests, make different decisions, and expect different experiences in the shopping mall they are attending.

When people shop, they concentrate on searching, observing, comparing, choosing, enjoying, calculating, imagining

With this project I want to focus on the transformation of the circulation space by composing vertical movements into the “ void ”, to surprise the public like in a musical composition, making the space a destination in itself. To design a rhythmic space, to free the choice of routes, to fill the ‘void’ with human interaction.

Void Monologue

and making decisions. Due to this concentration on buying goods, consumers in shopping malls are quite easily indifferent to others, even to their own companions. People, while shopping, seem to be talking to each other, but without really taking notice of the other person. Human interaction becomes the ‘void’ in the shopping experience.

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Yuting Guan

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Yuting Guan

Yuting Guan

In the beginning of the 21 st century shopping has become one of the most important social and public activities. It is part of our everyday life partly taking place in shopping malls. In the shopping mall, the journey of shopping not only takes place in shops, but also in-between shops – the circulation space. In the new FORUM shopping mall in Rotterdam, designed by OMA, the circulation space is situated in the heart of the building.

However, this huge circulation area of 17 770 m3, is mainly a “ void ” space, a serving space to provide good access to the shops and boost their visual presence.

Yuting Guan

Void Monologue

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Yuting Guan

Void Monologue

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MELTING P[L]OT

As everyone knows Rotterdam is a multicultural city. The MELTING P[L]OT will be a place for food culture or a food court which offers the cultural diversity of the food one can find in Rotterdam.

But the poetry of eating does not only come from the food itself.

Also the narrative, rituals and atmosphere surrounding eating are part of the enjoyment. It seems as if eating is a metaphor for the show, which uses food as a main character and customers as the actors.

To compose a story for the MELTING P[L]OT, I started by creating an experience with the concept of the open kitchen.

MELTING P[L]OT

Klinphaka Keawcharoen

MELTING P[L]OT, heterogeneous societies in a plot, refers to an eating place in which people from various cultures are invited to share an eating experience in which kitchens are melted and mixed together. The word P[L]OT has two meanings : one is a pot that represents food culture, and the other one is a plot that represents the context, in this case the FORUM building in Rotterdam. FORUM, a city in the city, aims to represent Rotterdam in one building.

The next step was to attract people from different cultures by offering unique eating experiences with special local menus and local eating habits. To emphasize the heterogeneous, I choose to put together opposing ingredients from each menu. Finally, my goal is to minimize the discrepancies and create a new experience, by designing a harmonic interior space that merges the various open kitchens and their related experiences.

Klinphaka Keawcharoen

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Klinphaka Keawcharoen

How to invite people from various cultures to share an eating experience in which kitchens are melted and mixed together ?

Klinphaka Keawcharoen

MELTING P[L]OT

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Klinphaka Keawcharoen

MELTING P[L]OT

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Reviving the Dead Shopping Mall

The inspiration for these changes comes from the original plans of the first shopping malls found in 1950s America. I have looked closely at the Austrian-born architect Victor Gruen (1903 - 1980) who transformed the American shopping mall to what we know today. He has proved to be a thought provoking and sympathetic individual who considered suburban shopping malls as the perfect canvas for social cohesion, combined with consumerism. Sadly the translation of Gruen’s original ideas are now lost in modern society, therefore, I have explored how to bring back his optimistic and inclusive design methods and to compose my own ‘ideal shopping mall’ for the future. On

This process is validated with the extreme decline in shopping malls throughout the world.

I believe the answer to the decline of shopping malls lies in reintroducing the lively, social and all inclusive elements of the early designs by the pioneer of the shopping mall: Victor Gruen.

Reviving the Dead Shopping Mall

the basis of my research I have concluded that my ideal mall is less concerned with shopping as a main activity, but is more concentrated on the themes of COMMUNITY and DIVERSITY.

Joanne Smith

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Joanne Smith

Joanne Smith

This project is a critique on the current situation of dying shopping malls. My proposal takes place in a semi-vacant shopping mall located in The Hague, the Megastores. This oversized giant ‘woonboulevard’ mainly concentrated on living and home stores, was build in 2000. From its immediate start the Megastores attracted very little people despite its central location in the city centre near the train station Hollands Spoor.

In order to invite new user groups and social awareness to the mall, in my graduation project I have introduced some structural and programmatic changes.

Reviving the Dead Shopping Mall

“A cut is made in the existing shopping building following the urban context, allowing cyclists and pedestrians through. New educational and community

functions are introduced here at the crossing with the internal circulation of the building.�

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Joanne Smith

Reviving the Dead Shopping Mall

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Exhibition Space

Exhibition Space

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Master Interior Architecture (MIA)

on experience through intensive technical workshops. Finally, the travel programme allows students to observe and reflect on the discipline, cultural phenomena and social themes.

Head of the master programme : Hans Venhuizen hans@enterinside.nl Programme Coordinator : Marja van der Burgh marja@enterinside.nl

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First year

INSIDE is a two-year, Englishtaught Master’s Programme in Interior Architecture at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, which targets the real world. A world that is changing : Large-scale interiors, the relationship between private and public space, sustainability and a greater demand for social cohesion are themes that call for new perspectives on interior architecture.

At INSIDE, we will challenge and see the world from inside-out and become INSIDE-architects.

The content of INSIDE is based on issues that designers, clients, residents or users of interior architecture are faced with. Through research, conceptualization and spatial design, sustainable, humane solutions for real world problems are developed and presented.

Programme The curriculum of the Master’s programme in Interior Architecture at the Royal Academy is based on two principles. Firstly, it is based on an analysis of research and design processes. Secondly, it builds on the principle of “ learning by doing ”.

Combined, these two principles lead to a curriculum that is divided into phases that each deal with specific stadia of research and design processes : observing, gathering knowledge, planning, research, presentation, evaluation, design, and again presentation and evaluation. These aspects are addressed in all parts of the curriculum and form the criteria on the basis of which students’ work is assessed.

The programme comprises five parts.

The heart of INSIDE is formed by the three studios – Inter, Urban and Space – which make up about 40 % of the programme’s total study load.

Apart from the studios, students participate in a longer research trajectory – INSIDEflows – about flows in contemporary interior architecture.

In addition to this, the programme is supported by a theoretical backbone, which trains students in their reflection on and position in the field of interior architecture, as well as a SKILLS programme that offers students hands

The first year is focused on the student’s introduction to design for the real world. Through the studios, the research group, the travel and the theory and skills programmes, students will be familiarized with all stadia of researching and designing for the real world : gathering knowledge, planning, research, design, presentation and evaluation. Students choose one from the three studios for each semester.

The other courses run throughout the year, but change their focus per semester or block.

Second year The first semester of the second year has the same structure as the first year, but focuses on mastering the skills introduced in the first year. In the fourth semester, the knowledge and skills acquired by students in the first three semesters culminate in a final presentation that integrates all the above-mentioned stadia of research and design.

More information Visit the website www.enterinside.nl If you have any further questions, please contact : Royal Academy of Art INSIDE, MA Interior Architecture info@enterinside.nl

The team of internationally orientated architects, designers and theoreticians : • Superuse Studios, Jan Jongert and Lizanne Dirkx • OMA, Chris van Duijn and Mark Veldman • DOEPELSTRIJKERS, Eline Strijkers • Bart Guldemond Other people involved in the programme : • Jan Konings • ZUS Kristian Koreman • REFUNC Denis Oudendijk and Jan Körbes • Lucas Verweij • Gert Dumbar • Erik Jutten • Vincent de Rijk • Jeanne van Heeswijk • Shift Architecture Urbanism Oana Rades and Thijs Bijsterveldt • Leeke Reinders • Dieuwertje Komen • Jeroen van Mastrigt-Ide and many others

Master Interior Architecture (MIA)

The total study load for the programme is 120 ECTS, equally spread over two years, which are divided into two semesters of 20 weeks each.

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Structure

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Royal Academy of Art INSIDE Master Interior Architecture Prinsessegracht 4 2514 AN The Hague www.kabk.nl www.enterinside.nl STUDIO URBAN OMA www.oma.eu “ How can the design of public space contribute to the success of the city center of Rotterdam ? ” The studio concentrates on the design of new public spaces in the Rotterdam City Center which shall contribute to the overall quality of the city center. Location for the studio project is the “ Forum ”, a new development designed by OMA for Multi Vastgoed, containing a program of mixed functions around large central spaces linking all main shopping streets of Rotterdam; de Lijnbaan, Beurstraverse, Coolsingel and de Oude Binnenweg.

CHRIS VAN DUIJN

Chris van Duijn joined OMA in 1997 as an architect and is currently an associatein-charge of several European Projects including two museums. One museum is under construction in Milan and will

contain the collection and activities of the Prada Foundation. The second museum is a refurbishment of a Soviet pavilion in the Gorky Park and will host exhibitions of the Garage CCC. Furthermore his portfolio includes a variety of very different projects : large scale complex projects such as a 300 000 sq. mixed-use centre in Helsinki but also a small, private villa in the centre of Rotterdam.

In addition to the architectural projects he is also involved in many of the R & D material projects in the office.

DOEPELSTRIJKERS www.doepelstrijkers.com “ Reactivating Katshoek. How can The Katshoek Building in Rotterdam be Re-activated within its urban context through Integral Sustainability. ” Studio Space works in 2013-2014 on a real assignment where a sustainable social development of the building is examined and answered on district, building and product level. Students participate in in a Katshoek laboratory where research are done and models and mock-ups are made of design proposals for the building.

MARK VELDMAN

ELINE STRIJKERS

implementation trajectories that empower people distanced from the labour market. This ambition impacts on the design criteria per project and adds an often hidden layer of meaning to the works. Examples of her most recent projects are SLEM, a renovated factory in Waalwijk hosting Education and Exhibition and the Lely Campus, center for sustainable agricultural solutions in Maassluis. Eline’s other activities include participation in juries and commissions in the field of interior and architecture, being a visiting critic and supervisor at Art Academies and Schools of Architecture. She regularly lectures and gives master classes and has participated in the working experience period for amendments to the Law regarding the Architect title and was involved as a teacher and field expert in the accreditation of some Master’s of Interior Architecture.

FLOWS

Mark Veldman has been working for OMA since 2005. As a project architect he has been in charge of a variety of both master planning, architectural and research projects. His portfolio includes the mixed-use projects Coolsingel and Stadskantoor in Rotterdam, the masterplans Oude Dokken in Gent and Binckhorst in The Hague and master planning proposals for the Floriade 2022 and Zeekracht, a sustainable approach for wind farming at the North Sea. Before joining OMA Mark worked for the architectural practise of Riken Yamamoto in Yokohama and was enrolled as a research fellow at the lab of Yoshiharu Tsukamoto (Atelier Bow-Wow) at Tokyo Institute of Technology. Mark completed his masters in Architecture cum laude at Technical University Delft in 2001.

Eline Strijkers studied Design and Communication in Rotterdam and Interior Architecture at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. Having worked for MVRDV for five years, she started Strijkers office, before founding DOEPEL STRIJKERS in 2007. Her office bridges the gap between art and science with intelligent design and strategic interventions. Driven by a fascination for aesthetics with substance, the office generates works which transcend the spatial by creating social, ecological and economic value. Giving form to the process and the financing are just as important as the design itself. She has a firm belief that design can act as an agent for social renewal leading to strategies that contribute to a “ circular ” and “ inclusive ” economy. “ Circular ” by closing energy, water, waste and material cycles. “ Inclusive ” by creating

Superuse Studios, www.superuse.org, www.superuse-studios.com Contemporary interiors increasingly depend on a complex of connecting flows. The research group INSIDE flows investigates the specifications and behaviour of these flows to support the development of sustainable design methods.

Tutors and Lecturers 2013 / 2014

Tutors and Lecturers 2013 / 2014

Head of INSIDE : Hans Venhuizen Coordinator : Marja van der Burgh

STUDIO SPACE

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Tutors and Lecturers 2013 / 2014

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LIZIANNE DIRKX

The course links theoretical and intuitive insights of both theorists and students to practical case studies. This Year’s Theory and Writing program “ The shopping street as a phenomenon of capitalist globalization within a digital world ” supports the studios theoretically.

Working on these shared case studies familiarizes students with both theoretical and practical concerns in spatial design.

The students explore various questions in 2013-2014 Theory and Writing program.

How will city centers survive the rise of the twenty-first century virtual space turning shopping either into a cultural or digital activity ? Which design tools are needed to counter with empty shop windows and abandoned streets, particularly in the non-globalized cities ?

And how will the shopping street of the future look like in a society where due to the crisis the exchange economy is becoming more popular ? Various shopping typologies, from the first indoor shopping centers (the arcades of 19th century Paris) to the market hall of MVRDV at Rotterdam are examined, as well as new phenomena such as the pop-up store and the virtual store with the latest trends. Besides types of shops more thematic subjects related to consumer behaviorism and visual merchandizing are investigated.

After her studies she was project assistent in the Collections and Exhibitions Department at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (now The New Institute) at Rotterdam, and part-time staff officer of Europan Nederland. During these years she was co-editor and co-author of 5 editions of the Yearbook Architecture in the Netherlans (2000-2005) and active as a freelance researcher, editor and image editor on several publications. For more then twelve years Anne worked as a Design and Architecture Coordinator at two cultural public foundations ; from 2001-2011 at the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture and from 2012-May 2013 at the Creative Industries Fund NL. Since then Anne is active as an indepenent researcher, writer, tutor, advisor and fundraiser within the field of Design and Architecture.

This year she organized together with Bonnie Dumanaw an exhibition and award ceremony for the Dutch Doc Photo Foundation. Anne Hoogewoning is Member of the Board of the Van Doesburghuis Foundation, Meudon / Paris and ArchiNed (The Architecture Site of the Netherlands).

primary focus has been on design theory.

She regularly writes for (inter)national art and design magazines and has contributed to a range of books, the most recent being “ Misfit ” (2011), a monogram of designer Hella Jongerius. Since 2000 Louise has been teaching at the Design Academy Eindhoven. In 2010 she started as Lector Design Theory at the Design Academy. Recently Louise was appointed Head of the Master Course Material Utopias at Sandberg Institute.

HEAD OF INSIDE + TRAVEL & SKILLS

HANS VENHUIZEN www.hansvenhuizen.eu

Anne Hoogewoning studied Architecture History at the University of Amsterdam.

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LOUISE SCHOUWENBERG

ANNE HOOGEWONING

Lizanne Dirkx joined Superuse Studios in January 2013. Lizanne was educated at the University of Brighton after her Bachelor’s in Product Design at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. Lizanne works as a Designer, Researcher and Workshop Facilitator. She is specialized in sustainability, social design, materials & crafts and the circular economy.

Tutors and Lecturers 2013 / 2014

Jan Jongert studied architecture in Delft University of Technology and the Academy of Architecture in Rotterdam where he graduated in 2003. The Rotterdam-based office exploits and builds on the potential of the design context in terms of its environment, potential workforce, energy sources, waste materials and 12 other flows.

Jongert has worked on various projects, ranging from Villa Welpeloo to redevelopment strategies for urban districts in Heerlen and Gouda. In 2013 Jan Jongert transformed 2012Architecten into Superuse Studios.

THEORY

Louise Schouwenberg studied Psychology at the Radboud University Nijmegen, Sculpture at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, and Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam and the Erasmus University Rotterdam. After establishing her career as a visual artist, from 2000 onwards her

Hans Venhuizen is Head of INSIDE, leads the TRAVEL program and curates SKILLS program. National and international excursions, symposiums, lectures, interviews and studio visits stimulate the observations of and research on phenomena in spatial design. Students gather impressions, and from that they allow particular phenomena

INSIDE Graduation 2014

Tutors and Lecturers 2013 / 2014

JAN JONGERT

INSIDE Graduation 2014

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Coordinator + PROPAGANDA

Rotterdam, and as PR Manager at the Dutch architecture offices Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Neutelings Riedijk Architects and at KCAP. Next to her task as Coordinator, Marja works with the students on the visibility and PR of INSIDE.

In 2011 / 2012, 2012 / 2013 and 2013 / 2014 :

Next to the theoretical development of the students and the design “ on paper ” it is the ambition of INSIdE to stimulate the student-designers as “ entrepreneurs ”.

That is also the reason why INSIDE has chosen the motto “ design for the real world ”. Students are asked to do research in the “ real world ” and to do several tests on a 1 to 1 scale. Every semester INSIDE wants to do a public presentation of the projects in “ a real world ” – context and on a one to one scale.

ERIK JUTTEN

SKILLS

The SKILLS programme is taught by various guest lecturers. This year the SKILLS programme included :

VARIOUS GUEST LECTURERS

PRACTICE TUTOR

Marja van der Burgh

Marja van der Burgh studied French Language and Literature at Leiden University with a Minor in Modern Architecture and Design. Before she joined INSIDE as Coordinator, she worked as Program Manager at the Berlage Institute, Postgraduate Laboratory of Architecture in

students & developing their projects.

A role he has since he continued as initiator of and partner in diverse public space projects.

To realise this, Erik Jutten works from the start until the end of the semester to develop the projects. Erik Jutten graduated in 2004 from the Fine Art department of the Royal Academy in The Hague. In his graduation project Erik Jutten devoted himself to connecting

Arjen Aarnoudse, Emiel Arends, Danielle Arets, Thomas Bedaux, Bas van Beek, Pieke Bergmans, Miriam Bleeker, Mathijs de Boer, Atze Boerstra, Merijn Bolink, Lieven de Cauter, Simon Davies, Andre Dekker, Theo Deutinger, Matthijs van Dijk, Chris van Duijn, Frank Feder, Fredie Floré, Job Floris, Aetzel Griffioen, Sven Grooten, Cynthia Hathaway, Frank Havermans, Marie-José van Hee, Arne Hendriks, Willem van den Hoed, Ronald Hooft, Jan Jongert, Birgit Jürgenhake, Chris Kabel, Gert van der Keuken, Krijn de Koning, Kristian Koreman, Thomas A.P. van Leeuwen, Pierre Lhoas and Pablo Lhoas, John Lonsdale, Rianne Makkink, Wilma Marijnissen, Ina Matt, Jeroen van Mechelen, Ernie Mellegers, Nels Nelson, Henk Oosterling, Denis Oudendijk, Kyong Park, Mark Pimlott, Bertjan Pot, Eva van Regenmoortel, Vincent de Rijk, Lorenzo de Rita, Michon van der Salm, Marc Schuilenburg, Iris Schutte, Jurriaan van Stigt, Eline Strijkers, Marianne Theunissen, Ari Versluis, Lucas Verweij, Philip Vierin, Frank Visser, Arie Voorburg, Simone de Waart, Peter Zuiderwijk.

Tutors and Lecturers 2013 / 2014

Hans Venhuizen first studied Urban Planning at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, but switched to Architectural Design and Monumental Art at the School of the Arts Arnhem.

In 1999 he set up Bureau Venhuizen, a project management and research bureau in the field of culture based planning. In search of a more specific identity for cities and areas, Hans links the worlds of culture and space to each other in different ways. His focus is always on the culture of spatial planning itself, and the game is his most important instrument. He developed various games, including the “ Parquettry Landscape game ”, the debating game “ The Making Of ” and “ Life, the Game ”. Recent projects include Koningsas, a research for cultural / spatial projects in the Groningen-Assen region, and K*eiland, a research and design project in an urban regeneration area in Utrecht and Autonia about the culture of the car.

• Todays Art by REFUNC and Wigger Bierma • Fairy Tales by Observatorium • Great Indoors by Sophie Krier and Stephanie Brandt • Gamification by Jeroen van Mastrigt • Presenting and Portfolio by Lucas Verweij • Modelling by Vincent de Rijk • Photograpy by Dieuwertje Komen • Research by Entering by Leeke Reinders and Tobias Woldendorp • Sound of the City by Christian Nyampeta • Tangible Spatial Interpretations by Erik Jutten • Thesis Graphic Design by Gert Dumbar

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INSIDE Graduation 2014

Tutors and Lecturers 2013 / 2014

to emerge. Phenomena are more than mere descriptions of a situation.

A phenomenon can be anything that reveals the “ truth ” of a situation : they are a tool to frame a situation and accompany the student during the process of designing a spatial change.

INSIDE Master Interior Architecture Royal Academy of Art Prinsessegracht 4 2514 AN The Hague www.kabk.nl www.enterinside.nl Editors : Hans Venhuizen Marja van der Burgh Anne Hoogewoning

Printing : Ecodrukkers, Nieuwkoop, 2014 All used components of this brochure as well as the printing process, are climate neutral.

The inks are produced on a vegetable base.

Copyright INSIDE, KABK The Hague / The Netherlands, July 2014 All images are made

by INSIDE Graduating Students.

Colophon / Credits

Colophon / Credits

INSIDE Graduation 2014 is the fifth publication by INSIDE Master Interior Architecture (MIA)

Graphic Design : Luc Eggenhuizen & Nina Couvert Royal Academy of Art (KABK) Typeface : Circular & Stanley

Graduating Students : Yuting Guan Klinphaka Keawcharoen Qing Liao Ni Nan Joanne Smith Roy Yin Special thanks to Bart Guldemond, tutor of the Graduation exhibition.

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INSIDE Graduation 2014

INSIDE Graduation 2014

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Contributors : Hans Venhuizen (Head INSIDE) Anne Hoogewoning (Tutor THEORY Programme 2013/2014)

OFF-SHOPPING SHOPPING

OFF-SHOPPING SHOPPING

Foreword

by Anne Hoogewoning

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Shopping

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• Arcades as connections and utopian ideas in european cities in the 19 th century

by Emilija Juodyte • Rebirth of the Dead Mall

by Joanne Smith • Unusual Spaces and the Invisible Trace of Architecture

by Elide Mozzorecchi • The Mechanism of Beurs Traverse Rotterdam’s well-functioning Shopping Machine

by Ewelina Borowiecka • Resurrecting a shopping street

by Zacharias Antoniades • The “ SHOPPING STREET ”

by Yuting Guan

06

Off-Shopping

28

• Off-Shopping in Beijing

by Jillian Chen and Feng Zhang • Off-Shopping in Krakow

by Ewelina Borowiecka

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13 16

Table of content

09

21 24

3

34

INSIDE Shopping / Off-Shopping

Colofon 39

INSIDE Shopping / Off-Shopping

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For them commercial areas are places where they meet, interact, socialize and not necessarily buy products.

At the same time, we also see how mainly secondary cities struggle with vacant shops in their main streets.

In some of the regional areas in the Netherlands, more than 10 % of the shops are empty. It is estimated that this percentage will continue to grow.

However this tendency is not only seen in The Netherlands. Besides the crisis and the popularity of online shopping, changing consumer tastes had their effects on suburban America : in the last decade more then 400 shopping malls turned into ghost buildings, some of them were empty almost as soon as they had opened.

Despite the persistently high number of empty shops in regional areas, large-scale shopping centres are being built in capitalist cities, trying to fulfil the needs and desires of a public longing for a third-place experience.

How will city centres and malls survive the tendency of twenty-first century shopping turning into either a cultural or digital activity ? Which design tools are needed to counter the empty shop windows and abandoned streets, particularly in the regional cities?

And how will the shopping street of the future look like in a society where, due to the crisis, the exchange economy becomes more popular ?

Overall theme of the study year 20132014 at INSIDE is “ the shopping street.”

With this magazine INSIDE presents among others a selection of the research done by the first and second year students during the first semester about the phenomena of shopping.

Various shopping typologies, from the first indoor shopping streets – the arcades of 19th century Paris – to the invention of the American shopping mall were examined, as well as new trends such as the pop-up store.

The texts give a diverse view on the spatial, social and historical aspects of the contemporary shopping street.

Besides shopping, some examples of “ off-shopping ” were studied, defined as possible alternatives for the usual typology of shops: a housing block in Beijing (China) where shopkeepers sell art supplies to students of the nearby art academy and disguised family houses in Krakow (Poland) hidden in secret passages where people can buy vintage products and have a beer or a glass of wine.

Anne Hoogewoning Tutor Theory and Writing

Foreword

Shopping has become the most dominant mode of contemporary public life. Worldwide there is a strong tendency for public spaces to be transformed into commercial activity areas devoted to the cultural ideology of consumerism. Especially for young people, shopping areas have become an alternative place, a space between home and school, to gather and to put aside the concerns of home (the first place) and school (the second place).

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INSIDE Shopping / Off-Shopping

Foreword

The shopping street as a phenomenon of capitalist globalization within a digital world

Shopping

INSIDE Shopping

Shopping

SHOPPING

SHOPPING

INSIDE Shopping 6 7

INSIDE Shopping

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Another researcher who focused on the architecture of arcades is Johann Friedrich Geist, a German architect and historian. In his book “ Arcades : The History of a Building Type ” he defines different types and functions of arcades.

Geist points out seven characteristics of arcades : access to the interior of a block ; system of access ; public space on private property ; symmetrical street space ; sky lit space ; system of organized retail trade ; space of transition.➀ Three characteristics (access to the interior of a block, system of access, space of transition) are linked to connectivity. In this paper I will analyse how arcades used to work as connections in the urban patterns and describe how they transformed into utopian ideas in the late 19th century.

Arcades are always located in the interiors of urban blocks with commercial streets situated in the middle of the city. Their function is to connect commercial streets and their extensions.

Geist defines different types of arcades and organizes them in a chart.➁ Some arcades simply form a straight line through a block, others are spread over several blocks and have connections with different streets. Some blocks have parallel arcades and others diagonal with different intersections, junctions and even squares. To resume : all these variations of arcades create different types of connections within the city– linking important streets, squares and giving access to public buildings.

Below I will give some examples of different types of arcades to show their wide variety. The first example is Burlington Arcade in London, a straight covered shopping street built in 1819, which formed an important connection in the city. It still connects Burlington Gardens with Piccadilly (a street), the second most important artery in London. Another example is Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert in Brussels. This arcade is constructed by the architect Jean-Pierre Cluysenaer in 1847 based on the proportions of the wider alleys of the old city. This arcade is interesting because it gives access to some public buildings : the Théâtre des Galeries Saint-Hubert, a restaurant, clubs, studios, offices and apartments. The gallery consists of two major sections, each of them more than 100 meters long (respectively called Galerie du Roi and Galerie de la Reine), and a smaller side gallery (Galerie des Princes). The main sections (King and Queen’s Gallery) are separated by a colonnade just where the Rue des Bouchers crosses the gallery complex. The third arcade I would like to mention is Galeria

Umberto I in Naples dating from 1891 and designed by Emmanuelle Rocca.

This arcade is cross–shaped with a dome. It was part of a larger urban renewal plan and it covers almost the entire block. The Galeria is located directly across the San Carlo Opera House and the Toledo Street, which is still the main downtown passage. The last one is the oldest arcade of Paris, the Passage de Panoramas, built in 1800 by the American architect William Thayer.

He created this Passage with a row of shops passing between two panorama paintings. Its name is derived from two round towers that were located once in the Boulevard Montmartre. This arcade, situated just along Rue Vivienne near the Bourse, still contains a multitude of small shops and restaurants, culminating in the back entrance of the Théâtre des Variétés. The artist’s entrance of the theatre opens directly into the Passage des Panoramas. In 1831, the rotundas were demolished and a few years later the passage was renovated by the architect Jean-Louis Grisart. He created the additional galleries (Saint-Marc,

Variétés, Feydeau and Montmartre) in order to develop a much more complicated connection. All these arcades had the function to make connections in the city, and to create public places or give access through the passages to public buildings. In Paris, arcades can even be understood as a kind of system with their uninterrupted connections linking the main streets in the city centre. However, because of the density of arcades in the centre of Paris, in my opinion it comes close to the utopian idea of a continuous, covered street connecting the entire city.

Utopias Because of the advantages of connectivity and comfort of the arcades together with the technological achievements, many arcades were built during the 19th century in many cities. At the same time their concept inspired utopian ideas how to develop a prototype for a desirable the city.➃ Especially the feature of the arcades to connect the city remained one of the most visible aspects which attracted a lot of attention.

Arcades as connections

The arcades of 19th century Paris became the new typology of public place. As artificial realities full of luxurious goods and places for “ flaneurs,” restaurants and galleries, the interior passages hosted many public functions. In his book “ The Arcades Project ” Walter Benjamin describes the arcades in Paris from a sociological point of view, as a public place and as a “salon” of the city.

How can changes in society be distracted from this new phenomenon as the arcade? Also from an architectural point of view, the invention of the arcade was important because of the iron structure and glazed roof which were used more widely in public buildings from the middle of the 19th century onwards. Besides, arcades functioned as a covered street, it was a way to connect streets and bring flows of people through the housing blocks in a more comfortable way.

Typology

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INSIDE Shopping

Arcades as connections

Arcades as connections and utopian ideas in european cities in the 19th century

Conclusion

The glass roof with a height of 21 meters was supposed to cover the street from the Bank of England to Trafalgar Square.

The glass structure would not be developed as a straight line but as a one uninterrupted covered promenade with crossing arcades and rotundas, creating accesses to churches, railways, theatres and other public buildings. Ten years later Crystal Way by architect William Moseley was supposed to be a 3.8 kilometres, continuous shopping arcade and underground train system linking the city of London and the West End. The covered street with shops should become the connective tissue for London. Another utopian idea called “ The Great Victorian Way ” was developed

by Joseph Paxton at the same time : a 16 kilometres continuous arcade connecting every London train station intended to solve all the metropolis traffic problems.

It was to loop between the City connecting the districts of Kensington, Vauxhall Gardens, Regent’s Park and Knightsbridge, to the commercial alleyways of Cheapside and Capel Court.➄ And in

During the 19th century arcades played an important role as lively junctions in many cities throughout Europe. Starting as a straight link between two streets, arcades slowly developed into more complicated connections with squares and various access points to public buildings. In this way arcades became an important part of some European city centres, especially in Paris. Due to new technologies the concept of covered streets evolved into utopian ideas as prototypes for desired cities. ➀ “ Arcades : The History of a Building Type,” Johann Friedrich Geist, MIT Press, 1985 ➁ “ Without and Within : Essays on Territory and the Interior,” Mark Pimlott, Episode Publishers, 2007 ➂ “ Benjamin for Architects,” Brian Elliot, Taylor & Francis, 2010 ➃ “ The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping ” Chuihua Judy Chung, Jeffrey Inaba, Rem Koolhaas, Sze Tsung Leong, Harvard University, Taschen, 2002 ➄ “ Out of Soho : Reading Joseph Paxton’s “ Great Victorian Way,” Henry Atmore, ➅ “ Subterranean Cities : The World beneath Paris and London, 18001945,” David Lawrence Pike, Cornell University Press, 2005

➆ “ Victorian Glassworlds : Glass Culture and the Imagination 18301880,” Isobel Armstrong, OUP Oxford, 2008 Emilija Juodyte -------------------------------------------------

Rebirth of the Dead Mall Victor Gruen : “ I am often called the father of the shopping mall. I would like to take this opportunity to disclaim paternity once and for all. I refuse to pay alimony to those bastard developments.

They destroyed our cities.”

The Birth of the Mall Victor Gruen was the founding father of the Shopping Mall in 1950s America.

The Austrian–born architect originally designed these commercial spaces as social and safe places where people could meet in a communal environment.

In his preliminary vision, designed with partner Elsie Krummeck, Gruen proposed to separate the parking space from the shopping area and to combine commercial and civic functions. The competition design as part of a model town, was organized around a green plaza that allowed visitors to stroll and relax in garden restaurants and milk-bars in front of music stands. The complex encompassed 28 stores and 13 public facilities ; the public facilities included a library, nursing school, post office, games room, theatre, clubhouse, auditorium and stables for ponies. Almost one third of all mall functions were not commercial and the space designed was for living and leisure and not solely for shopping. According to Jeffrey Hardwich “ The shopping mall is both the most visible and the most contentious symbol of American prosperity.

Despite their convenience, malls are routinely criticized for representing

much that is wrong in America – sprawl, conspicuous consumption, the loss of regional character, and the decline of Mom and Pop stores.”

After the Second World War, Gruen dreamt that suburban American life could have more social egalitarianism and freedom of choice because he recognized the loneliness and isolated behaviour of housewives at this time.

The developers of shopping malls changed Gruen’s socially encompassing design to be commercial “ factories ” with the sole purpose of selling goods and keeping the public happy enough to go shopping. What we experience nowadays in shopping malls is a bare and lifeless existence with little or no social space. These spaces have been dying almost since their problematic creation.

Currently, we even see a social and economic decline of the mall resulting in empty and sometimes completely abandoned spaces.

Rebirth of the Dead Mall

1898 Ebenezer Howard proposed the ideal diagram of the Garden City, designed in concentrically organized zones with a shopping arcade as the central ring.➁ It would serve as a magnet of activity and as a route to which all parts of the city could be connected with. Even though the circular shape was unusual for arcades, its goal was to create better connections and bring the city closer to residents living in the outskirts.

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Cumbernauld, Glasgow Cumbernauld is a new town of Glasgow, Scotland, built to combat density problems in the 1950s. The town centre was considered to be an utopian experiment, ahead of its time in construction and vision but failed sadly from very early in its development. What we see in this example of a failed shopping centre is an over ambition to combine many different social functions into a brutal, tetris–style building which broke boundaries in order to be different. As a new town, the local government of Cumbernauld wanted to build the city centre as a shopping area. Whereas in most old towns we would still have the option to go to the high street, Cumbernauld decided to use the shopping centre as the heart of the city.

INSIDE Shopping

Arcades as connections INSIDE Shopping

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In 1845 Frederick Gye proposed this project called “ Glass Street ” in London.

It was supposed to be a massive, elevated glass and iron street raised on a brick viaduct over London – constructed entirely on arches of sufficient height to pass over the numerous streets, without presenting any obstacle to the ordinary traffic, with entrances at the principal cross streets.➅

By 1981 the “ Golden Age Hotel ” of Cumbernauld city centre was demolished and less than 10 years later the large department store and underground parking were closed. In 2007 a new shopping centre was built relatively close to the original development. “ The New Antonine ” is 33,000m2 of shopping with newly built parking spaces. What is distressing about this situation is that so much construction and deconstruction

Rebirth of the Dead Mall

In 1971 phase two of the building was completed including a public library, dentist, doctor, pub, bank, hotel and bowling alley under one roof. This time was said to be the most popular period for Cumbernauld. Copcutt had similar ideals as Victor Gruen to combine social and commercial activities to create a “ meeting point ” where residents could feel safe and engage in social activities.

Copcutt certainly pushed forward an experimental style of the city centre and was enthusiastic to build the town for tomorrow and integrate shopping with everyday living. Physically however the public found it an ugly building with intensely windy walkways and not easy to access by foot. Soon, the building was abandoned by Cumbernauld’s residents because of its physical attributes.

Therefore no social interaction took place. Since then, for developers the solution was to build separate megastores around this failed structure.

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INSIDE Shopping

Rebirth of the Dead Mall INSIDE Shopping

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In 1955 the first phase of Cumbernauld was completed with penthouse apartments and the shopping centre which was accessible through the duel carriageway running under the elevated structure. The parking spaces for 5000 vehicles were located underneath the structure, which was new as usually parking would be isolated around the shopping facilities. The architect Geoffrey Copcutt wanted the users to feel comfortable and make transport as easy as possible.

INSIDE Shopping

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Even though this brutalist giant of Cumbernauld had all the potential qualities Gruen was looking for the “ ugly architecture ” and commercial developers contributed to the death of social shopping in the structure. But I do think there is potential for this Utopian dream to be revived. As we can see in many mall regeneration projects, the characteristics of shopping malls can be adapted for different uses, therefore highlighting the need to build new structures.

A very positive adaptation of a similar structure is Joplin High School, Missouri 2011 where 55 days after the original school was destroyed in a Tornado, two groups of designers – DLG Group & Corner Green & Associates – redeveloped an empty shopping mall to become the temporary location for 11th and 12th grade students. The open warehouse style of the mall was separated with temporary walls which create large contained classrooms surrounded by shared social spaces. This temporary solution used the open spaces as a unique design perspective for a school which enhanced the priority of public openness in school design. It is encouraging to see that the commercial qualities of the building (openness and grand scale) have become the key aspects for bringing social qualities back to a school.

Public library McAllen, Texas Another example of store regeneration is the public library in McAllen, Texas, which is housed in an ex-Wallmart store.

Architects Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle

By combining the shopping structure into one larger function, the possibilities are endless for the kind of spaces which can be created. In these two examples we see many advantages of doing so. It is important to remember experimental architectural projects such as Cumbernauld to remind us of our architectural history, and by doing so, we can re – use the space for modern day needs.

Cumbernauld could use the existing structure of its town centre to re – programme and regenerate the civic situation. If shopping no longer gains in interest or revenue on this site, then a complete shift in programme could be a solution. Areas where small shops currently remain vacant could be transformed into a public school or educational facilities.

To Conclude What I increasingly notice is the use of abandoned spaces for temporary shops or exhibitions as the cost of these spaces are much lower. Cumbernauld could use the empty spaces to its advantage and make the spaces available on short term leases to local artists, small businesses and educational sectors.

Before the demolition of a mall in Brooklyn, New York, a wallpaper collective took the opportunity to use one of the empty stores to their advantage.

Flat Vernacular used an abandoned Victoria Secret store as a two week pop up studio to promote and express their brand. The advantage of using this pre–determined space was to give a blank canvas for exploiting their brand

in a public environment. If Cumbernauld separately rent each empty compartment of the structure and give opportunities to individuals for creative temporary solutions, an ever–transformable situation bringing life and interest could be developed. The typology of the modern day shopping mall with glass shop facades, open spaces and communal circulation space could lend itself to a gallery or communal workshop environment.

Shopping malls are becoming a social problem and as Guy Debord describes : “ Responsible for the self-destruction of the city. ” People are no longer encouraged to meet their neighbor at the local shop or visit mixed use city centres where they can shop and live in one place. For the consumer and car driven culture of today the shopping experience is uniform and isolated from living. With the continuing construction of many shopping malls, it is useful to consider the implications of commercial structures in a new age where commercial spaces are at risk.

Every new construction should have a predetermined secondary plan or a “ plan B ” solution in order to secure the longevity of such spaces.

Above I showed some case studies about how the structure of the suburban shopping mall can be used for positive functions and how to bring back creativity to social environments with the revival of experimental solutions. As Victor Gruen would have recommended, his failed typology could be used today in a positive way and bring back dreams of suburban freedom and character. “ Shopping Towns, Megamalls and the Future of the City ” (paper presented at Ulus Baker Conference, july 2008, Ankara), Anette Baldauf.

Joanne Smith -------------------------------------------------

Unusual Spaces and the Invisible Trace of Architecture The age of doubts “ Shopping is arguably the last remaining form of public activity ”➀ Rem Koolhaas says. “ We are living in the age of doubts ; people have two different attitudes simultaneously : they are confused by the wide range of items offered in todays society but at the same time they would like to be independent, disenchanted, competent, exigent, selective.

Material goods are no longer important, but services and experiences are gaining significance.”➁ That is why, in my opinion, thinking about retail spaces is becoming a fundamental topic. The shop itself must be magnetic, memorable, but above all must communicate and spread an identity through the space itself. The shopping activity is no longer important anymore : shopping has to take place in a fictional universe which can be remembered by clients.

Unusual Spaces

Rebirth of the Dead Mall

Different use

adapted the empty store, using the large heavily lit warehouse to their advantage.

A very unsocial homogenous environment such as a corporate store can take on a new life of learning and sharing, which Victor Gruen had dreamed of how shopping malls could be.

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Temporary stores Experience is always linked to space and time. These two components are also useful for analyzing retail spaces.

Temporary stores occur within a group of retail spaces and are designed to exist for a certain length of time. Temporary stores, also called Pop–Up Stores, are called this way for their characteristics of appearing and disappearing. The first example, the Vacant Shop in New York City, was invented by Russel Miller, a former public relations manager and magazine editor, But the typology really became famous thanks to the Japanese brand Comme des Garçons, whose creative mind, Rei Kawabuko, decided to open the first Guerrilla Store ➂ in 2004 in Berlin.

INSIDE Shopping

has taken place to save a failed shopping centre, when the only realistic solution was to build a new one. Now the site of this town centre is a cluster of isolated megastores joined only by the car park spaces.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Pop-Up-Store is the relationship between space and products. Pop-Up Stores seem perfectly to embody, on a larger scale, the layout of some objects and the temporality of products, the seasonal disappearing of goods from shops. I will call these kind of spaces “ space–objects.”

Temporary shops represent a smart solution to the different crises. The financial crisis because they allow people to start a cheap and easy business and to experiment with new ideas. ➄ The crisis of spatial use, because Pop–Up Stores occupy vacant spaces in the cities for a short time, in this way they solve partly and temporarily the problem of empty spaces. But above all temporary shops change the activity in the shopping street ; they attract different kind of people in different kind of places and they contribute to the revaluation of a specific area. Pop-Up Stores represent an event and not just a simple space, social and cultural activities are often combined with shopping activities.

Architecture is no longer the main protagonist of urban space, because there is a density around it, instead of the emptiness of the past : that emptiness in which historical architecture took place. Nowadays everything is a message, a sign, information, movement and flow. Architecture can no longer be the main element of the city, and this is one of the reasons why the tradition cannot revive itself. ➃ Interiors play a bigger role and in my view they represent the revolutionary and experimental content of architecture. Examples of space–objects could be Ape Malandra (Milano) and the COS pop-up store (fuorisalone Milan Design Week 2013).

The first example is a typical Italian Ape-car (the three wheels car) which can be found around Milan and some

Increasingly, peripheral areas are the new locations for opening up a Pop–Up Store ; the experimental, darker and more alternative atmosphere is preferred above the shiny and popular shopping street in the city centre, even by famous brands like Comme des Garçons. In this way shopping has become an activity that fills the space, something that goes around the city, and disappears again, leaving an invisible trace behind.

The architecture of the pop-up stores plays the role of a spectacular theatre, of a comedy that is apparently appreciated by its clients. This peculiarity makes the public curious and encourages them to travel, to search and research the place and products which represent their personality. In the past, people travelled to visit museums, monuments and cities.

Nowadays people travel to find the shop they like.

Has shopping become the only entertainment?

Prada Transformer : the invisible trace of architecture Launched in Seoul in April 2009, the Prada Transformer designed by OMA / Rem Koolhaas showcased for five months a series of cross-cultural exhibitions, screenings and live events. The Transformer combined the four sides of a tetrahedron : hexagon, cross, rectangle and circle into one pavilion. The building, entirely covered by a smooth elastic membrane, was sober and white. It was flipped using cranes, completely reconfiguring the visitor’s experience with each new programme. Each side plan was precisely designed to organize a different installation creating a building with four different identities. When one wall became the ground plan, the other three walls defined the ceiling of the space, as well as referencing historic or anticipating future event configurations.

The Prada Transformer appeared and disappeared again nearby the 16th century Gyeonghui Palace and an old temple. It dramatically juxtaposed Korean history, tradition and folklore with this 21st century multi–dimensional event space. It was designed to turn periodically and to change it’s position with the aid of a massive crane. In this way it became part of Prada’s global commitment to the production of new realities in fashion, art, architecture and creative culture.➅

Today’s architecture does not have to be eternal to leave a sign or a trace.

The spot in which a pop-up store took place will never be the same again.

Nothing may have changed physically, but the invisible trace of architecture will be felt like a sort of absence that is still present. Isn’t it a clear sign of change of values to build a Pop-Up Space for one of the most expensive and exclusive fashion brands near an old palace and temple and close to Buddha’s birthday?

Has shopping become a new religion?

Unusual Spaces

other Italian cities. In the Ape-car shop owners sell expensive children’s clothes, nobody knows where the car will stop. The car itself is a product, but also a space where products are sold.

The COS Pop-Up Store is designed as a sort of closed box which can be opened with all components designed as a special support for clothes and accessories. It’s a spatial explosion which can be traced back to a basic solid introverted cube. Apart from this particular kind of Pop-Up Shop, temporary stores can also be found inside existing buildings. Usually the name of the shop has not been changed, the original architecture is maintained and the furniture is cheap and second– hand.

Prada Transformer is not only about shopping.

Nowadays space has to be multi– functional, exactly like contemporary products. People have to be fascinated and entertained by a multisensory environment. Performances, services, posibilities become goods themselves, as well as becoming space. Jeano, in La Société de Consommation, writes “ Medieval society was balanced between God and the Devil. Ours is in balance between consumption and its denouncement.”➆ Maybe there is also a “ balance ” between these two views : the space in which consumption is implemented within culture.

The world is changing and at the same time approaches to fundamental aspects of human life are changing : society, culture, shopping. In the liquid modernity all these aspects have become mingled together.➇ Pop–Up Stores represent an interesting experiment not only for making shopping more interesting, but also because they offer people more than just shopping. ➀ Chuihua Judy Chung, Jeffrey Inaba, Rem Koolhaas, Sze Tsung Leong, Harvard University – The Harvard

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Pop–Up Stores appear and disappear, exactly as products do.

They are not eternal.

They are ephemeral.

They are multi-sensorial.

They are itinerant.

They are new.

They are experimental.

They are making consumers the protagonists.

They are unique and subjective.

They are a surprise.

The Pop-Up Store typology does not relate to particular levels or quality of brands. It is a strategy used by all kinds of shops. Expensive brands such as Prada or Comme des Garçons as well as cheap brands like H & M have already experimented with this kind of shop.

Elide Mozzorecchi -------------------------------------------------

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The Mechanism of Beurs Traverse — Rotterdam’s well–functioning Shopping Machine

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Feast for the senses on Saturday afternoon Saturday is the most crowded day on the Beurs Traverse. The shopping day starts at 8 am with the opening of the nearby market on the Binnenrotte, which can boasts to be the longest in Europe. Many people come here to participate in a merchandising spectacle ipso facto maintaining the long – lived tradition of Rotterdam’s trade. The noises come from all directions. Hurdy–gurdy cheerfully encourages visitors to bargain.

The market stall owners loudly praise the benefits of their products. Juicy fruits, crunchy nuts and smelly fish all create a colorful kaleidoscope. All treats are at your fingertips and tempt you to taste them.

The Mechanism of Beurs Traverse

When the need for food, drink and flowers is satisfied, the merry bunch of Shopaholics heads towards the Beurs Traverse, a pedestrian passage under the busy avenue, to try on some shoes, clothes and jewelry. The procession of consumers starts here every-week playfully wandering and ritually flirting with objects of desire. The craziest of purchasers lose their sanity in a shopping fever. They enter Jean Baudrillard’s geometrical locus of abundance, where streets “ with their cluttered, glittering shop-windows (...) stimulate magical salivation. There is something more in this piling high than the quantity of products : the manifest presence of surplus, the magical, definitive negation of scarcity, the maternal, luxurious sense of being already in the Land of Cockaigne.

These are our Valleys of Canaan where, in place of milk and honey, streams of neon flow down over ketchup and plastic.

But no matter! We find here the fervid hope that there should be not enough, but too much (…) ”

In the eyes of shoppers, the lack of a product equals the need for possessing it. The mechanism of seeing = wanting is used in a merchandising strategy : showing = selling.

None of these activities can be found on the Beurstraverse. they are forbidden by shopping mall regulations.

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How does this machine work?

The double curved sunken passage leads it visitors along the storefronts under a protective screen against inclement weather canopies and caring eyes of surveillance cameras. The passage is cut away from the rest of the street forcing pedestrians to walk through its entire length. The shoppers willingly participate in a choreographed scene on a real–life stage–set. The street is built out of repeating sets of shop windows, lights and advertisement. The designer, Jon Jerde, created the frivolous atmosphere by decorating the façades with Italianate arches. This postmodern reiteration of historic forms generates a narrative pattern that establishes relations between images and places, resemblances and meaning.

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The Mechanism of Beurs Traverse

Design School Guide to Shopping Taschen – 2001 ➁ Giulia Gerosa - Il progetto dell’identità di marca nel punto vendita (The project of stores’ brand identity) – Franco Angeli – 2008 ➂ http ://www.federica.unina.it ➃A ndrea Branzi – L’architettura inutile è un valore (Unuseful architecture is avalue) - Interview www.wisesociety.it – 2011 ➄ http ://it.wikipedia.org ➅h ttp ://www.archimagazine.com ➆ Jean Baudrillard – La société de consommation – Gallimard – 1986 ➇ Zygmunt Bauman – Modernità liquida (Liquid Modernity) – Laterza – 2002

The Mechanism of Beurs Traverse

The Mechanism of Beurs Traverse

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The Beurs Traverse is a well–functioning shopping machine. Every passer–by, finds himself pulled into the vortex of commercialism, imposed on him by the images of goods. The “ just looking ” of a passer – by is, according to Margaret Crawford, an American professor of architecture, a prelude to buying. Once the viewers see what they can buy, they realize whatthey lack and therefore need. “ Shoppers cannot only realize what they are but also imagine what they might become. The endless variation of

The first meeting of a potential buyer with his object of desire takes place through the cold surface of the shopping window, which is the equivalent of a market stall. Behind the display on the Beurs Traverse hides the underground shopping network. The illuminated glass is therefore a vestibule of the consumer paradise. To follow Jean Baudrillard : “ that specific space, which is the shop– window — neither inside nor outside, neither private nor wholly public, and which is already the street while maintaining, behind the transparency of its glass, the distance, the opaque status of the commodity — is also the site of a specific social relation. Tracking along the shop-windows, with their calculated riot of color, which is always at the same time a frustration, this hesitation — waltz of shopping is the Kankan dance in which goods are exalted before being exchanged. Objects and products are offered there in a glorious mise–en–scene, a sacralizing ostentation (…) This symbolic, silent exchange between the proffered object and the gaze is clearly an invitation to real, economic exchange inside the shop.”

Salon des refuses The street life on Beurs Traverse is vibrant and rewarding, but limited to the opening times of shops and only one type of user : the shopper. It is a simulated reality, where privacy is exchanged for the feeling of security and a range of activity is limited to one : going shopping. The unwanted behavior (from an economic point of view), such as taking part in sports or walking with a dog is not only discouraged by the lack of suitable facilities, but also forbidden by the local regulations. If someone sits on stairs or slides on a ramp, he can expect an immediate visit from a mall guard, who

will kindly ask the outcast to leave this tabernacle of consumerism. With no place for gathering around living statues and buskers, chatting in an outdoor cafe or simply resting, the street loses its status of a place to meet people.

Instead, it becomes a place to admire objects. For the imperfect client, a creative planner of his own day and a claimant of a space, the place to be is outside the magic circle of the Beurs Traverse. To be in control of one’s path, choices and actions, is a privilege of the escapee from the greedy hands of the shopping machine.

Ewelina Borowiecka -------------------------------------------------

Resurrecting a shopping street Despite the economic crisis, people tend to have a strong commitment to the “ traditional shopping street.” These streets have historic significance as centres for social and communal activities, from Roman and medieval marketplaces to shopping streets. In the early days they were often considered important places for the identity of a community.

“ Is the spread of clone towns and the creeping homogenization of the high street anything more than an aesthetic blight? We think so. Yes, distinctiveness and a sense of place matter to people.

Without character in our urban centres, living history and visible proof that we can in some way shape and influence our living environment we become alienated in the very places that we should feel at home.”➀ From this quote one can conclude the reason why the most central and modern Avenue of the capital of Cyprus – Nicosia - is deserted and left alone in the last years. The truth is that Makariou Avenue was just another cloned shopping street that had no specific character. Although it had a modern look, Makariou Avenue had nothing particular to offer that could not be found in any other shopping street.

It was not unique. As a result, Makariou Avenue, which once thrived and was full of life, is now empty and the number of people meeting friends and spending their time there has declined. In contrast, the once empty and deserted shopping street in the old walled city Ledras Street, has been upgraded.

Nowadays the residents of Nicosia prefer to go to this street which has become the new hangout for young-

Resurrecting a shopping street

objects means that satisfaction always remains just out of reach.”

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To complete the picture of an idyllic setting, a few entertaining facilities were added : trees, “ impostor– fountains ” for children and touch–screens that help to navigate one through the shopping maze and allow photos to be made which are sent straight to the Beursplein Facebook profile. The materials of the “ Koopgoot ” (the shopping gutter) stand out from the surroundings. This creates the feeling of being separated from the total city life. The feeling of “ being inside ” evokes the impression of being protected from outside dangers and problems. The absence of sitting and resting places and the narrow shape that provokes the constant movement of people impedes socializing on the street. “ Being among others, seeing and hearing others, receiving impulses from others, imply positive experiences, alternatives to being alone.” These favorable contacts in public spaces, discussed by the Danish architect Jan Gehl in his book “ Life between Buildings ” are replaced by shoppers’ fascination for commodities.

As Jean Baudrillard observes,“ their daily dealings are now not so much with their fellow men, but rather (...) with the reception and manipulation of goods and messages. This runs (...) from the minor proliferation of vaguely obsessional gadgetry to the symbolic psychodramas fuelled by the nocturnal objects which come to haunt us even in our dreams.”

In an article, the Mayor of Nicosia pointed out that this revitalization and development of the historic centre of Nicosia had been achieved through : • Incentives through the revitalization programme, • Providing free Internet access, • Giving shade to part of Ledra and changing regulations for outdoor dining, • Frequent garbage collection,

Last October a new cultural initiative of the Municipality of Nicosia filled the empty shops in Makarios Avenue with Pop Up shops from some of the most talented young Cypriot authors, artists, designers, animators, photographers, musicians and producers. Apart from the fixed hours of operation, each store hosted exhibitions, concerts, film screenings, theatre performances and other interactive events, revitalizing the sadly

Resurrecting a shopping street

The historic centre has the benefit of an attractive environment that offers a variety of cafeterias, restaurants, bars, low prices, and a relaxing walking path in a pedestrian area in combination with shops without the hassle of cars. This gives the old street a strong competitive advantage above Makarios Avenue, which is a modern street that offers all the unique and exclusive brands. If Makarios Avenue would become more accessible to pedestrians then the number of visitors might increase. But why was the old Ledras Street upgraded by investors? What marked the complete change of direction and caught their attention? Historically, the old town had a beauty of its own. When the municipality gave “ green light ” to open cafes and restaurants in the pedestrian zone, the meeting spaces increased and people slowly began to prefer the old town.

•E nsuring the feeling of security in the region, • Smooth traffic movement and •E ffectively adressing illegal issues, in cooperation with the police.

The old city, once filled with low income and illegal immigrants, is currently flourishing and full of life both night and day. The current 30% increase in real estate investment, has resulted in higher rents. All low-income immigrants have been forced to move to the cheaper outskirts. Currently in Makarios Avenue only a few cafeterias have survived, they continue to stay open - but not without effort. Rents are too high and parking in the street is too expensive for the costumer. The shopkeeper’s only hope for a better future is focused on the Municipality of Nicosia which organizes various events in the Makarios Avenue. “ As the municipality of Nicosia, we place great emphasis on transferring activities in the Avenue, increasing mobility. For this reason we organized the Pop Up Festival,” said the Mayor of Nicosia.

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sters as well as elderly people. In this street people feel more at home and comfortable, it is a place in which you can enjoy your walk without the noise of the cars. The preference to go to Ledras Street has to do with the fact that people gather to witness something different. As market trends show, visitors to shopping streets are increasingly seeking an “ experience,” as well as the opportunity to shop. Hence, people are drawn by eating and drinking establishments and leisure opportunities and this is what Makarios Avenue lacks ; it must seek to establish a competitive offer.

By observing these two very different shopping streets I conclude that activities promoting interaction between people support the vitality of shopping in a street. In particular, the mixture of retail and leisure facilities plays an important role in increasing the number of people in the street, especially outside regular opening hours. Let’s hope that innovative events encourage people to visit the Avenue and enjoy a pleasant shopping and leisure experience but most important capture the interest of businesses and

➀ New Economics Foundation, Reimagining the High Street, 2010 ➁ The Changing Face of the High Street : Decline and Revival. A review of retail and town centre issues in historic areas, June 2013 Zacharias Antoniades -------------------------------------------------

The “ SHOPPING STREET ”

in the English word “ shopping.” Also the two parts of this English phrase evokes different images. Mainly commercial, mainly spatial or a balance of both? In this text I try to give different meanings of words by capitalizing certain words and to graphically explain the differences. For instance : “ shopping street ” “ SHOPPING street ” “ shopping STREET ” “ SHOPPING STREET ”

“ shopping street ”

This kind of street draws attention through its commercial attractions merchandise, advertisements and special events. In this way the street remains a void of activities and becomes a boring transport path for shoppers and the passersby without showing any emotion.

The owners and shoppers are the main user groups in a “ SHOPPING street ;” they generate the atmosphere of the place. These kind of streets are commercially successful, they stimulate people to go forward in the street and to go deeper into the shop. More flow of people brings more commercial flow.

“ shopping STREET ”

The “SHOPPING STREET”

restore the marketability and vitality that the Avenue once had.

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When speaking of a “ shopping street ” as something known to all of us, and when trying to analyze or define the idea expressed in this word, we must always bear in mind that it is defined and limited by the words we use. “ Words and ideas are not born of scientific or logical thinking but of creative language, which means of innumerable languages – for this act of ‘ conception ’ has taken place over and over again.”

The meaning of the word “ shopping street ” is not as simple as the meaning of for example a “ hand ” or a “ foot.” The word “ shopping ” describes the activity while “ street ” presents the spatial quality. In Chinese, the idea of the word “ shopping ”-(guangjie) has more to do with wandering than with commercial activities, which is not at all expressed

Here a street lost its passion, as neither the commercial use nor spatial quality is generated. Nobody will find excitement in this kind of place, not owners or shoppers, not even passersby. In my opinion this is not what the people want.

“ SHOPPING street ”

This “ shopping STREET,” has in my opinion a very good spatial quality.

These are streets for people to spend their time. Cafes and restaurants are located in the open air on sunny days, protected from wind and rain. Inside space flows into outside space. Various types of music are mixed together with people chatting and laughing. Coffee, beer, tequila ; Italian, Spanish, Mexican ; all colors of drink are available as well as all types of food. These are places which people always mention as meeting points, places with a lively atmosphere.

The attraction of these streets is the liveliness and joy. However, this kind of streets are not the streets shoppers are looking for, because in these places commercial activity is (almost) gone.

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deserted shopping street and giving everyone the opportunity to experience the work of a talented young cultural creative city. This attempt was praised by the locals and attracted much attention. It helped to make people aware of the situation and stimulate to help to resurrect the Avenue by starting a movement called “ occupy Makariou,” who organizes peaceful protests to make sure that everyone gets the message.

Many other attempts to revitalize Makarios Avenue are undertaken by the municipality. For example a layer of grass was laid recently in the once busy street which became suddenly an open field to a friendly football tournament called «Food - ball fiesta» where entertainment and food where mixed together for charity. “ At a time when people are increasingly looking for a leisure experience rather than simply a range of shops to visit, an approach can help in creating a greater sense of ‘ destination ’ and potentially competitive advantage. Cohesion and pride in the quality and economic vibrancy of our town centres arises from much more than just shopping. This is especially true in those locations which also have a strong business identity or offer wider attractions for entertainment, leisure, cultural and tourism activities. These centres are also often those with the greatest heritage qualities.”➁

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Charles Baudelaire presented a more memorable portrait of the flâneur : “ The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes.

His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet

For the flâneur a “ SHOPPING STREET ” is an urban maze, it spreads all over the city ; it is the vein of the city. It links squares, parks, museums, galleries, theatres and all existing beauties of the city. Brightness, darkness, silence, noise, small scale, different atmospheres, various experiences are part of the SHOPPING STREET. Beauty is generated by careful exploration. The beauty of the street is the meaning of urban life ; the development of individuality will become richer through the wandering of the flâneur. “ Empathy is the nature of the intoxication to which the flâneur abandons himself in the crowd. He enjoys the incomparable privilege of being himself and someone else as he sees fit. Like a roving soul in search of a body, he enters another person whenever he wishes.”

The flâneur is a solitary wanderer, an inspired creator. He has no specific relationship with any individual, yet he establishes a temporary, yet deeply empathic and intimate relationship with what he observes. The street is

different for him then for others ; he imagines his own street. Wandering for him “ is rather a stepping out of ‘ real ’ life into a temporary sphere of activity with a disposition all of its own.” He is not wandering in “ ordinary ” or “ real ” life. He “ stands outside the immediate satisfaction of wants and appetites.”

The “ SHOPPING STREET ” is not only a place for the flâneur, but also a place created by the flâneur.

As shopping becomes an increasingly important activity in urban life, the shopping street should be a street that contribute to both public and individual development. We cannot compare the “ SHOPPING street ” with the “ shopping STREET,” because they have different public focuses.

Instead of material beauty, the “ SHOPPING STREET ” offers space for immaterial beauty. It is a place for the individual touch in the public urban environment. It aims to stimulate individuality and to create a more individual human being.

So, in my view, the ideal conception of the word shopping street in these changing times could be the “ SHOPPING STREET,” a public space fertilizing the individuality.

Yuting Guan -------------------------------------------------

The “SHOPPING STREET”

This “ SHOPPING STREET ” is the kind of street that I would like to recommend in this text. Not just because in these places the commercial activity is mixed with the liveliness of the street, but also because those places are capable of attracting the biggest user group–the flâneur, in the urban environment. Flâneurs appear to be just passing through the street to kill their time, but their role is more than just passing by. The flâneur was, first of all, a literary type from the 19th century France. They carried a set of rich associations : The man of leisure, the idler, the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street. The flâneur “ is the very opposite of doing nothing,” “ the gastronomy of the eye ”, “ there was nothing lazy in flâneur, it was, rather, a way of understanding the rich variety of the city landscape ”, “ it was a moving photograph of urban experience.”

to feel oneself everywhere at home ; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world – impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define.” Walter Benjamin described the flâneur as the essential figure of the modern urban spectator, an amateur detective and investigator of the city.

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The “SHOPPING STREET”

“ SHOPPING STREET ”

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Location: Hua Jia Di Nan Street, Chao Yang District, Beijing, China Type of shop: Art Supplies Store close to China Central Academy of Fine Arts

Off-Shopping in Beijing

Off-Shopping in Beijing

Jillian Chen and Feng Zhang interviewed a Shop Owner in the housing district Chao Yang in Beijing where many inhabitants started art supply stores, restaurants, bed & breakfasts and even class rooms on the ground floor of their own house.

➀ When did the arts supply stores started to sell art products ?

Shop owner : We

all started at a different time. YaMa Li was the first one who started his shop, this was about fifteen years ago.

Besides art supplies we also sell art books, a variety of paintings and picture frames.

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➁ How is your business doing ? is okay. Especially around the Art Academy Admission Test which takes place every year. Passing the test is the only way for high school graduates to get submission to the Art Academy. Students from all over the country travel to Beijing and join an art training class of approximately a year before the admission test takes place, which is usually around March. This year 24.000 students have signed up for the examination, but 96.7 % of them will not pass, they are my main customers.

OffShopping in Beijing

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Shop owner : It

Off-Shopping in Beijing

Off-Shopping in Beijing

course, we need a business license and we need to pay taxes. In China business taxes are pretty high but we always find a way to avoid it. customers.

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Shop owner : Of

➃ Are you also living here ?

Shop owner : Yes,

we live upstairs and some shop owners even live in their shop. All the shops are located on the ground floor.

Shop owners usually live on the first floor and have a second kitchen in their shops to be able to take care of the shop during lunch and dinner times.

Jillian Chen and Feng Zhang

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➄ How much is the monthly rent you have to pay for the shop ?

Shop owner : Even

though this is an old residential district, the advantage is that the housing rental fee is rather cheap, about 10€ / m2 per month. Because the housing block is near to the art school, many students rent an apartment in the block. Art students who live here or around the building have provided more business to the shopkeepers, making this neighborhood specially for selling art products.

Nevertheless, recently a large arts supplies store opened nearby taking away many customers.

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➂ To open a shop here, do you need a business license and do you need to pay taxes ?

rental ad hotpot Off-Shopping in Beijing

Off-Shopping in Beijing

rental ads

noodles

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private house for rent contact number

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Beijing print studio

Ewelina Borowiecka discovered unexpected commercial activities behind old facades and in hidden, secret places.

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Off - Shopping in Krakow

Off-Shopping in Krakow

On each corner in Kazimierz, the historical Jewish District of Krakow, the past and present mingle. New places humbly inhabit old walls respecting the history of the street.

On Szeroka Street, the hart of the district, the genius loci becomes tangible. The row of curious shop fronts thatoriginate from before World War II have withstood the test of time.

Weather-beaten window shutters, shabby looking display windows and shop sign boards announce their owners’ names, professions and merchandise : Chajim Kohan (various goods), (fashion shop) tailor Szymon Kac, Benjamin Holcer (carpenter workshop), Stanislaw Nowak (grocery store), Aron Weinberg (leathergoods). The interiors are as they used to be in the past but the partition walls have been pulled down, turning the former adjacent shops into one single space of a restaurant.

Posters advertise cyclical Jewish music live concerts ; the menu combines traditional Polish and Jewish cuisine. Furniture and decorations are composed out of curious artefacts : the old and proud portrait of the previous shopkeeper, the carpenter’s

workbench, tools of the joinery trade, a wooden rocking horse, the nimble handiwork of the Master tailor, the flywheel of an ancient sewing machine, the antique stove bearing the star of David and various other artefacts of which the function has almost been forgotten, such as Koter or Fabot. The place feels like a materialized childhood memory of an old rabbi. People come here to touch history and breathe time that has stood still.

Aron Weinberg (leather goods), Stanisław Nowak (grocery store) also an entrance to the restaurant.

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View of the interior of the restaurant, carpenter’s workbench transferred into the dining table.

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Off-Shopping in Krakow

Restaurant and Beer Lounge “ Once upon a time in Kazimierz ” Address : Szeroka Street n° 1, Krakow, Poland

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If shops were given a name, this one would be called “ A Secret Passage ”. To find the place, people will have to find the address on a website. You can enter through a dark stone gate, pass through the courtyard, and go up the wooden staircase to the first floor.

To the concept store : view of the St Tomasz Street

To the concept store : wooden staircase leading to an entrance door

Ewelina Borowiecka 41

The store

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Here you will find vintage products with the backdrop of an old, not renovated tenement house. However, this is not the end of the journey. In the corner of the second room, there is a staircase that leads you down to a cafe. When continuing on the way down, you will find an art-theatre and exhibition space in the basement called Loch Camelot.

Off-Shopping in Krakow

Aside from the city centre of Kraków, in the quiet Dêbniki district, there is an inconspicuous street that obscures a cafe and wine bar disguised as a family house. Indeed, it used to be a baker’s house, with a bakery in the back. The interior has kept it’s industrial style, with a tiled stove to add to its charm. The cook puts on a show for customers in the open kitchen, on the counter an album is on view with photos of dogs for adoption, and there is a constantly changing selection of wine to buy. The secrecy of the place is well kept ; no sign, except for address, informs you about the exact location.

LuLu Living Concept Store & Bar Address : St Tomasz Street n° 17, Krakow, Poland

The store

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Off-Shopping in Krakow

Cafe and wine bar + wine shop and event place.

Address : Konfederacka 4, Krakow, Poland

INSIDE Master Interior Architecture Royal Academy of Art Prinsessegracht 4 2514 AN The Hague www.kabk.nl www.enterinside.nl Editors : Marja van der Burgh Anne Hoogewoning

Printing : Ecodrukkers, Nieuwkoop, 2014 All used components of this brochure as well as the printing process, are climate neutral. The inks are produced on a vegetable base.

Copyright INSIDE, KABK The Hague The Netherlands, July 2014 Most photos were made by students and staff of INSIDE. As it was not possible to find all the copyright holders of the photos in this publication, INSIDE invites interested parties to contact INSIDE.

Colophon / Credits

Colophon / Credits

INSIDE Shopping / Off-Shopping is the fourth publication by INSIDE Master Interior Architecture (MIA)

Translation : Christine Willemsen Graphic Design : Luc Eggenhuizen & Nina Couvert Royal Academy of Art (KABK) Pantone : Purple U & Green U Typeface : Circular & Stanley Contributors : Anne Hoogewoning (Tutor THEORY Programme 2013-2014) Hans Venhuizen (Head INSIDE) Shopping : Zacharias Antoniades Ewelina Borowiecka Yuting Guan Emilija Juodyté Elide Mozzorecchi Joanne Smith Off-Shopping : Ewelina Borowiecka Jillian Chen

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Please visit www.enterinside.nl