Gifted a new spotlight by the recent Covid-19 pandemic, Panic Buying is a topical phenomenon described as ‘the buying of large quantities of a particular product or commodity, due to sudden fear of a forthcoming shortage or price rise’. Despite its newfound relevancy, our thesis group discovered that that this subject was yet to be thoroughly investigated from an architectural lens.
Although panic buying may seem like a relatively minor affliction in today’s world, it could also be viewed as a symptom of the wider failings of the UK’s consumer infrastructure. Our investigation revealed distinctly architectural ramifications, both at the scale of the supermarket, and much further afield into the layout of our cities, and the structure of our global trade networks. The topic of panic buying, therefore, resides within a large architectural discourse.
