ICSC Future Image Architecture Competition

Have you ever thought of enjoying breakfast in the African wilderness under the rising sun over the savanna with the sights and sounds of wildlife abounding all around you?

Ever dreamed of a romantic candlelight dinner with a loved one in a quaint café in Venice with the hypnotizing sounds of the water and a gondolier’s song drifting through the air?

This is all possible now through the exciting new concept of Destination Dinging! It’s easy, pick your desired destination and dining time; then sit back and experience dining like never before.

Destination Dining explores the concept of transcending themed, regional, and ethnic dining as a form of global entertainment and socializing. This is accomplished through the interaction of people from around the world at a specific location without physically being at that destination.

How it works: base restaurants will be set up around the world in strategic locations to provide the greatest opportunities for people to take part. Within these restaurants there will be a number of dining spaces; all corresponding to an actual “Destination” in the world. Each dining space is made up of video screens that encompass the entire room. These video screens project a 360 degree real-time image of the “Destination”. The experience includes actual sounds, authentic furniture, and menu of the related cuisine. This sets the stage for the dining experience. Dining guests book a reservation which includes selecting a destination and dining time (due to time zones the base restaurants will be open 24 hours). Once guests arrive at a base restaurant they will be escorted to their reserved dining space. Upon entering the dining space they will be instantly transported to the destination, like walking through the actual door to the destination. What creates the possibility is the real-time holographic image of a diner being transmitted into the “Destination”. The allows for the personable interaction with the other guests at the “Destination”. What makes it truly global is not only do you have the opportunity to interact with the actual diners at your location, but also with others that are being transmitted holographically from their base restaurants from around the world. In simple term you could be eating breakfast at 2 a.m. in New York while interacting with someone eating at 4 p.m. in Australia, through a virtual connection in Africa where you are sitting next to them while watching the sun rise over the savanna.

Now that is a global experience!

Create a time-variable retail and social environment that responds to consumer-driven desires for ongoing personal interaction in a convenient, exciting, sustainable environment connected to their daily experience. Redefine the physical context to reduce boundaries between uses, allow consumer interface via communication technology, and integrate regional, neighborhood and individual scales while enhancing density nodes through transformative place-making™ over time. Provide flexibility of form for adaption to new, existing and temporary locations.

The Retail Center of the future is envisioned as a linear integration of sustainable wind powered rail and a multi-use marketplace that changes over the course of the day. Focusing on the “customization of place,” the realm of shopping merges with the realm of social networking as it is engaged through “hand-held” mobile devices and experienced in person.

Occurring at the intersections of regional transportation nodes and mixed-use centers, urban streetcar realms and on the train itself, this shopping environment adapts to shoppers’ needs during different times of the day and is embedded within their daily commute and social experiences.

In our proposal, the traditional train shed is envisioned as an interconnected marketplace in which the train plays an active role in shopping, networking and defining an individual understanding of place. The marketplace is outfitted with a series of modular kiosks that move and are transformed over the day. In the morning the kiosks are at the platform, providing the service retail needs of the morning commute – coffee, paper, laundry…. At midday the kiosks form a central space around the linear datum of the train bed in an open market of shopping ranging from high-end retail to farmers goods and local designers. At days end the kiosks form outward looking spaces that engage the local neighborhoods as a series of restaurants, entertainment plazas and social spaces.

The train is split into two levels: an upper passenger level where “window shopping” occurs in transit and a lower retail level where passengers can shop during their commute.

During the morning commute, passengers can “window shop” via a series of projected and interactive images on the interior surface of the train that highlight what the marketplaces will transform into during the evening commute home. Passengers can interact with these images on their ”hand-held” devises, in order to gain more information about their potential evening destinations, such as how many tables are available for dinner at the restaurant the train flies by in the morning or to virtually preview a new season of merchandise that has just arrived at a favorite store, checking to see if a desired size could be in stock for the commute home.

In the middle of the day, during non-peak commuting times, the train transforms into a mobile shopping destination and docks for more extended periods of time at different markets along the line.

Throughout the course of the day, the train delivers goods to the shops along the retail corridor and delivers passengers’ daily purchases to their desired final destination.

The story of the demise, rebirth and eventual triumph of the American shopping center will generate an arc that could rival the most riveting of tales…

A 4 trillion dollar-a-year industry in peril.

Internet retail challenges the very means by which goods and services are exchanged…Shifting cultural values [from the acquisition of power and materiality toward the pursuit of experience and collaboration] challenge the relevance of the retail industry, as it is currently understood…And a new ecological imperative challenges the wisdom of the entire notion of the suburban shopping center.

From uncertainty and crisis rises great opportunity.

The intrepid resourcefulness that has defined the American “brand” will serve as the fuel for unparalleled industry transformation.
Rapid decline in shopping center performance will provide the accelerant. Economic, environmental, cultural, and technological advances will converge over the next decade to reshape the American Shopping Center.

The result will be a Retail Renaissance.

The moments before [re]birth are often complicated and dangerous… To hazard a prediction of the future requires and understanding of the specific forces that will conspire to overcome the inertia of the past.

The following are the 10 most powerful forces that will alter the shape and trajectory of the retail industry over the next decade…

Force 1 Internet Commerce
emphasis on value, more choices, buying directly from brands/manufacturers, instant access to experts

Force 2 Social Media
enhanced customer service via an open source operating model enabled by RFID technology, detailed customer profiles, dashboard metrics and enhanced connectivity.

Force 3 Ecological and Personal Sustainability
carbon positive, fresh air, healthy food, a culture of wellness

Force 4 Production, Consumption, Reuse
malls will generate more than sales…they will grow food, create crafts, manufacture products, generate energy and provide education

Force 5 Rebalancing of Feminine and Masculine
today, in excess of 90% of consumer purchases are made by women…malls will respond by engaging men as well…sales and satisfaction will be equalized along gender lines

Force 6 A Broadening of Uses
the seeds of new cities…multi-generational, multicultural…rich in experiences that will include retail, education, manufacturing, culture, entertainment, education, cuisine, sports, romance, medicine, transportation, wellness, travel, hospitality, religious, office, and adventure

Force 7 The Experience Economy…Actual Reality
the antidote to time spent online…the mall will become a spectacle of hands-on demos, lectures, performances, classes, tastings, parties and shows

Force 8 Shift Toward Local…Away from Monoculture
malls will become one-off, Etsy-like individualized showcases of local artists, materials, cultures, personalities and causes

Force 9 Multi Modal Access
civilization follows transportation…malls will reduce their emphasis on single-owner cars and morph to accommodate buses, vans, trains, subways, airplanes, scooters, bicycles and pedestrians

Force 10 Ethos Sharing
transparent corporate ethos and commitment to charitable causes will become critical to customer loyalty and a key shaper of environments and brands.

The accompanying images are a page from the story of Crossroads City…a descendant of the typical American suburban shopping center.
They illustrate an evolving New Order of Mall that balances the successes of shopping centers past with the vibrance and velocity of what’s to come…

TRANSfusion thinking inside the box The desire to heal. To revive, respect and remix the retail community.

TRANSition We are a the cusp of a fundamental evolution of retail.

• new cultural and social communities
• new demographic and ethnographic groups
• new vocabulary and language
• new ways of communication
• new icons and totems
• new forms of commerce

TRANSparent
Retail interaction is now a two-way street. Today, through online social networks, the customer defines and judges what the brand is and how it evolves. Developers need to build and architectural framework as a backdrop to retail tenants, who must be fluid in defining who they are, what they stand for and how they stay in synch with their customer.

TRANSformation
New life is injected via mobile retail villages that fuse shopping, entertainment, food and socialization. Pre-made, sustainable cells inserted into the landscape adapt to their context. Modifications capitalize on climate conditions and responsibly use and generate the energy of a region.

TRANSportation
Linked to mass transit, these HUBS become the new cores of our communities.

TRANSmutable
This flexible experiment allows developers to easily shift the mix of shops, restaurants, and entertainment to meet the needs of any community and any time of the day.

TRANSlate
Re-purposed shipping containers are fabricated off-site to the specifications of many iconic brands as retail and experience.

TRANSact
Bold new retail concepts intermingle with local favorites to create a spontaneous and exhilarating shopping event that is all at once exclusive, inspiring, global and grounded. Limited edition product offerings paired with one-night-only entertainment options create an energy and excitement that traditional retail establishments cannot match.

TRANScend
More than just retail, it is communal…what Ray Oldenburg called the ‘THIRD PLACE’. Combined with live/work loft-style housing units, a zero carbon footprint can be attained. Reduced commuting needs give back our most precious commodity – time.

TRANSfusion is radical placemaking with heart and soul, where community is the framework and fashion, theater and joy are infused night after night.

Set to become the heart of the city, Wulin Plaza- currently under construction – is an 112,000-SM retail and civic destination located adjacent to the historic Provincial Exhibition Hall in downtown Hangzhou. The project is a dynamic combination of form and function, serving as a junction for social, commercial and civic activities, as well as a transportation interchange for two new subway lines. Comprising two levels of underground retail, an open-air plaza with a sunken courtyard, direct access to a subway station, and below-grade parking, Wulin Plaza caters to a new generation of shoppers – a generation seeking connectivity, integrated uses, environmental initiatives, and a unique sense of place.

Among its achievements, the design:

• Creates an elegant landmark that comfortably juxtaposes old and new;
• Maximizes storefront visibility and natural light in a predominantly subterranean facility;
• Provides intuitive circulation patterns that complement the rich layering of the space;
• Connects to a major subway interchange; and
• Develops a scheme that is flexible for future expansion.

Wulin Plaza features 46,000 SM of leasable space. By stacking the retail, the team was able to achieve the intended program without creating a big-box, enclosed mall feel. Instead, storefronts open to the sunken courtyard, fostering an active, outdoor lifestyle environment. Glass curtain walls and expansive skylights bring as much light underground as possible while simultaneously showcasing the merchandise and retail activity within. The design, with its entrances into the subway, caters to both time-pressed commuters and those seeking a leisurely shopping experience.

RTKL’s web-like scheme pays careful attention to access and flow, establishing pathways that align with the site’s trajectories and historic central axis. An existing at-grade fountain located in front of Provincial Exhibition Hall serves as the centerpiece of the site and creates a beautifully landscaped gathering place for civic events. Paving patterns in the form of concentric circles emanate from this point to further define the borders of the space. Tiered plazas and ceremonial stairs create a sense of depth that enables shoppers to choreograph personalized journeys throughout the commercial mix.

Given the limitations of the underground site, the project’s most significant achievements is the way it fits seamlessly with the existing urban fabric. Surrounded by a mix of commercial, government, and cultural facilities, Wulin Plaza feels like a natural extension of the land, a representation Hangzhou’s regeneration and growth, and a reflections of smart urban development.

“What if in the future the strongest consumer impulse was to NOT consume?”

Retail today invariably depends on and promotes a notion of market consumption. The current perception is that any avenue available to deliver a higher volume of product to market is a good avenue, irrespective of actual customer needs or effect on community. As we also know, modern marketing seeks to create needs where there are none.

If future products and services are driven less by an up-cycle consumer demand or a flood of product and marketing, but rather by a smart buyer demand, then all aspects of the retail supply and experience would respond according to these new value drivers of smart buyers. Traditional linear models of product-to-market where the consumer is at the tail end of the process would no longer be effective. Supply chains and inventory intensive distributions would have to be reworked. Large format critical mass venues would become obsolete.

Triple Bottom Line:
Conventional retail relies ultimately on a single bottom line – does it make money? Profit has been the only measure of success, and consumer value has been heavily defined by image and what you are told – not what you really get. Future measures of ‘success” will embrace the merging concept of Triple Bottom Line, where product and service will need to address here distinct gauges of that success – economic, social, and ecological. These new value systems will be driven heavily by the ongoing evolution of the smart buyer, and a change in the perception of a buyer from a consumer to a customer.

The New Smart Buyer:
As the inherent inefficiency of traditional linear retail models escalates, customers will begin to gravitate toward a more resourceful method of sale and purchase. This change will be marked by the shift from larger individual users to the use of flex spaces, fitted with technology that promotes knowledge sharing, interaction, and demonstration. These expo-like scenarios will allow customers to perform direct, informed purchasing. As customers embrace this more responsible buying, the new retail dynamic will focus on waste minimization and direct purchase/delivery. Retailers introduce products that can be upgraded in perpetuity, rather than discarded in favor of new ones.

Smart Cycle Retail:
Conventional retailing follows a linear model that creates product and delivery methodologies that are strategically marketed, delivered through a variety of retail venues, and ultimately reach the consumer with a calculated amount of choice on offer. This model relies heavily on a high amount of waste (consumption), and in order to move additional product, disposal and up-cycling needs to occur. The future model will develop into one that rewards simplification and resourcefulness. As customers place greater value on responsibility through products that minimize waste, retailers respond accordingly.

Retail Communities:
As buying power shifts to a generation nurtured in a culture of customization, large format retailers and vast inventories will become obsolete. The new retail model will adopt smart design to produce sustainable community environments. As retail settings become ecological places as well as economical, they will embrace energy producing technologies and structures that actually sell back to the grid. This new model will favor the development of smaller, more focused retail communities, places that promote knowledge share and interaction. Individuality and identity will develop and thrive in retail environments in which one is treated as a unique customer, rather than a disconnected end-user.

Hypothesis:
As retailers of the future address the triple bottom line philosophy, the concepts of community, economy, and ecology blend together as three cohesive planes on which retailers function. In so doing, thriving smart communities are created; they consume less resources and move away from stand-alone malls, boxes, and developments. As an ever-increasing emphasis is placed on responsibility, effective retail and product to market delivery will need to embrace an integrated form a with new social and ecological drivers.

Extreme Hiroshima Extreme Hiroshima – the fusion of a cutting-edge entertainment/leisure vision a world-class destination; will adjoin the new Baseball Park in Hiroshima, Japan. Visitors will be directed through an unusual triangular site of approximately 18,200 SM (4.5 acres) walking to and from the adjacent rail station, along a newly constructed ramp; starting at grade, and rising to the Ballpark gate and concourse, eight meters above the street. Along their way, a dynamic mix of unique retail stores, great food & beverage and the “Extreme Hotel” and “Extreme” attractions await them, in this one-of-a kind design format.

As the pedestrian ramp and Ballpark is scheduled to open this season, an initial concern was if such a ramp would be an unfortunate constraint, effectively splitting the property in two. However such a high-traffic thoroughfare of fans, seeking to enjoy their leisure time before and after games, could not be anything but a tremendous opportunity. The new ballpark will be used for hundreds of game-days, as well as concert and other major events. Our vision is a distinct development that compliments the ballpark, yet is able to draw crowds 365 days a year, regardless of climatic conditions.

Concept 2

Of the three preliminary concepts originally presented, Concept 2 re-builds and modifies the climbing elevations to create larger flat areas (maximizing the efficiency of adjoining uses above and beneath the ramp).

This two-level concept replaces the pedestrian ramp with a helix on the east-side, allowing pedestrians to arrive at an upper concourse level more quickly, (6 meters above the street) and revealing an even larger landscape of open-air Extreme attractions to visitors. Though all three Concepts include an indoor Surging/Entertainment arena; this scheme is unique in showcasing it also as an overlook from the upper ramp concourse.

This concept features more exposure to Extreme attractions, against less retail-restaurants pace in the center. However, restaurants are placed with outdoor terrace over-looks to the actions below, leveraging their potential value and popularity.

Shopping is focused more on the east-end of the project, with an exciting climbing rock attraction in the center of the helix/ replete with sculpture and light to demark the project entry. This option offers ballpark visitors an exciting interactive array of Extreme activist along this lively promenade.

Extreme Hiroshima – defy the limits!

Design/Completion: 2008/projected opening 2010
Location: Istanbul, Turkey
Developer: Ülker Group
Size: 613,320 square feet/57,000 square meters. 14.1 acres/5.7 hectares

As one of the most popular sports clubs in Turkey, Fenerbahçe S.K. occupies a position of social and sporting prominence in Istanbul culture. It is appropriate then that the new home for the club’s competitive and successful basketball team will soon be playing its matches in an extraordinary and inspired new setting. Slated to open in 2010, Alpella Youth City is both a state-of-the-art sports and leisure facility and a defining new retail and entertainment destination for the city of Istanbul.

The sleek, 15,000 seat multi-use arena at the heart of the new project is designed to accommodate a variety of sports activities, musical performances, trade shows and promotional events. Connected to the arena is a three-level sports lifestyle center designed to accommodate a diverse mix of retail options, including cinemas, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a number of restaurants and cafes, and a family entertainment center.

The center overlooks a dynamic open-air events plaza, a spectacular oval-shaped space that can comfortably accommodate game-day crowds as well as function as a stand-alone dining and entertainment attraction. The plaza is complimented and animated by large-scale interactive media elements that stream a mix of live game video, advertising and branding opportunities. The specially selected hillside site accommodates an abundance of easily accessible multi-level parking strategically located below the arena and shopping areas, while terraced dining and café overlooks the plaza. All told, the Alpella Youth City design includes more than 25,000 square meters of leasable retail and entertainment space. An 8,500-square-meter, 240-key hotel and a 12-story, 20,000-square-meter office tower bracket the site and contribute to the diverse blend of uses that have been integrated into this innovative mixed-use development.

The sophisticated architectural styling and curvilinear forms that frame the space reinforce the sense of energy, vitality, and seamless interconnection and help affirm the visionary nature of a project that promises to not only satisfy the increasing demands of the club’s enthusiastic and supportive basketball fans, but to redefine the intersection of sports, retail and entertainment.

We were challenged to design a thriving mixed-use retail destination in the Sinchuan Province of China that could function as a destination experience and serve as a center for community activities and public performances. We were also tasked with making the design sustainable. The result is the Red Ring Mall, inspired by the Lycaena phlaeas Linnaeus, which is native to the Western region of China and is a symbol of long life, beauty and elegance. The building design was inspired both by local tradition and symbolism but anchored by practical necessities. The color red and the number eight figured prominently in the building’s design. Red is associated with happiness and good fortune and eight is a symbol of prosperity and wealth in Chinese culture. The butterfly floor plan also mimics a figure eight and both buildings are eight stories. The large, low-profile footprint of the building is an effective earthquake-resistant property, which is necessary in an area often affected.

The design of the Red Ring Mall pushed the envelope by anchoring the mall with exhibition/performance space at the ground level surrounded by restaurant and retail with terraced levels above for viewing throughout. The complex yields approximately 1,100,000 square feet of retail space below 300,000 square feet of distinctive residences on the top two floors. The retail storefronts have been designed to be clean and uncluttered with movable, curved, translucent interior partitions to create privacy while maintaining accessibility and maximizing flexibility. Transparent and translucent skylights and curtain walls combine seamless skins with high performance environmental control. The profusion of glass also provides multi-level penthouse apartments with gracious views of the city skyline while activating retail storefronts, allowing visual access at the ground level.

Creating a variety of experiences was critical in their dense urban setting, which led the designers to capitalize on underground and overhead areas. The eight store building includes two levels of below grade parking and two rooftop gardens. Each “wing” of the mall will have a rooftop garden with a different theme. One will be a serenity garden creating a quiet place to relax for both shoppers and residents. The second garden will be a children’s garden where the young and the young at heart can discover and experience the natural world.

The design for the Red Ring Mall is anticipated to achieve the minimum gold LEED certification. The Mall is an urban infill redevelopment site with additional infrastructure. The development will utilize pervious paving materials, reuse storm water for grey water supply for both irrigation and building purposes, and spaces, thermal comfort controls for residents, and use of low-emitting materials will assist in improving the indoor environmental quality. The building will provide on-site renewable energy using solar photovoltaic cells to assist with building energy requirements.

Program: Multi-level Big Box retail development that includes three major tenants located long a 200’ section of 7th Avenue in downtown New York City.

Concept: The CUBE is based on the idea of creating maximum brand exposure for three urban big box retailers in the form of a unified dynamic building façade. It is apparent that the 200’ of frontage along 7th Avenue is the most valuable real estate, and the goal is to make that frontage seem like 400’ giving all three retailers adequate and expected retail presence along 7th Avenue.

The concept is to create a single powerful iconic statement that will become the new focus of the Penn Plaza District. The idea is to make a singular architectural statement that has multiple identities, and multiple reads. This is accomplished by creating a relatively inexpensive building shell, and then wrapping the 7th Avenue façade with a high tech glass projection wall that will appear to float away from the core building. By projecting color, pattern, light, images and text, each tenant will have the ability to promote brand and identity retail imagery, and spectacular light shows along three 100’ x 200’ screens. The building is a sophisticated fusion of Architecture and Brand that brings focus and elegance to the district.

The life span of big boxes, once thought to be 20 to 30 years, has shortened considerably. So what do you do with a discarded big box?

The CUBE is unique in the fact that it has been designed with the inevitable death of the big box in mind. The building can be completely recycled by simply reprogramming the façade and making some minor modifications to the interior. The building can easily blend into its surrounding context, be used to make a political or social statement, or completely stand out from the adjacent buildings. Location: New York, NY

Area: 481,437 sq. ft.

Tenants:
Target Levels 01 & B1
Home Depot Levels 01 & 02
IKEA Levels 01, 03, 04, & 05

The Azzano Retail Centre offers an exciting new retail and leisure attraction at the existing Oriocenter shopping mall located in Bergamo, Italy. The expansion projects contains approximately 80,000 SM of retail, food options, a gym and a cinema, as well as a 12,000 SM hotel and 12,000 SM of office space. The building’s design embraces the central feature of the project, which is a large pedestrian plaza with terraced seating and canals. This dynamic landscape invites visitors to experience the architecture from beginning to end, exterior to interior. Our design creates a destination point with both retail and park experiences; a vision to accommodate both the busy shopper and the leisurely visitor.

The greatest challenge for the team was designing a retail center that not only focused on the shopping experience, but also on creating a pedestrian-oriented urban environment in Bergama – a predominately suburban area. Therefore, our innovative approach merges form with function as well as landscape with architecture, blurring the lines between nature and built-form. The fluidity of the design is expressed throughout. The shape of the shopping corridors, the skylights above the terraced plaza, each blend organic elements with structural order.

The Azzano experience begins from the moment you step out of your car to the moment you leave the site. The primary vehicular access leads to the car park, which is underneath the building and masked from the road by the terraced landscaping. Linking shoppers to and from the parking garage is a pedestrian ramp, which offers picturesque views of the central plaza, terraced seating and ambient canals. Whereas most retail centers follow an inward-looking scheme, Azzano is outward-looking, featuring a built environment that surrounds a landscaped garden and directs views out onto the plaza to create a scheme rich with daylight and natural features. While the plaza has been designed to be accessible by car, it is meant to be utilized and enjoyed by the pedestrian, both inside and out. This central feature serves as a link between suburban and urban, promoting a sense of place, alive with people and nature, movement and fluidity.

We are confident that our retail expansion will enhance Bergamo with a unique leisure destination. While the car is inevitably the main access to our site, our goal is to divert the focus from the vehicle to the pedestrian in order to promote a more sustainable environment. The fluid combination of architecture and landscaping will seduce the senses, spark curiosity and create the desire to explore the surroundings, successfully implementing an urban atmosphere within a suburban setting.

NEXUS – “Link: the means of connection between things”

This mixed use development is located in the heart of central Europe. Its situation give the project a unique and advantageous position, as it is well connected to both the capital city in the north and other neighboring European cities close by.

The nature of the site and program give the project a series of challenges to resolve, in the placing of the program elements and the division of the site by a motorway.

Hence, bridging two communities become the primary challenge of the project. A solution was sought to unite both the east and west parcels of the site in a way which resolved the split and worked with the program. Such a challenge calls for an innovative architectural response to help resolve the issues and respond effectively to the site conditions and program. An innovative and dynamic structure over the motorway was created which acts as both an icon to the development and to the city as a whole.

Apart from the unusual site conditions, the different mix of uses make this project a unique and innovative scheme for the area. The program consists of a mixture of elements with complimentary synergies across both sides of the site. Such an exceptional mix is expressed in the architecture of the development making it a unique experience for the people of this region.

EXP [electronic experience project] is envisioned as the world’s largest “Hi-tech Experience Center” creating an architectural landmark in the CBD of the new district of the Fengtai Science Park Headquarters in south Beijing.

Located adjacent to the 4th ring road the project site is comprised of two separate plots of land totaling 353,900 square meters. EXP includes a large shopping mall, an international apartment hotel, a conference and exhibition center and other supporting facilities, with the electronic experience center serving as the core of the project. This project will function as a platform for the display of the most advanced electronic products and electrical appliances in the world.

Taking cues from electronic products and industrial design, the project becomes reminiscent of familiar technological icons such as the iPod rather than reflecting more traditional architectural characteristics.

Advanced architecture is, as Manuel Gausa suggests, a stimulating architecture, which we have to assume is a product – a brand.

Envisioned as an “Electronic Portal” the project becomes a gateway where the visitor is transported to an environment full of the latest technology, interactive exhibits, and products.

The west façade literally becomes an electronic portal. Comprise of an array of large digital display modules the west façade can act as a billboard displaying advertisements and logos or it can serve as a window looking into the project. Cameras placed at various locations in the project can relay real-time video of what is happening inside to people passing by on the highway.

Retail’s future will be shaped by the struggle between the VISCERAL and the VIRTUAL world. “High tech” and “High Touch” are not exclusive concepts, but are brought together in THE PLACE.

We will need to balance TECHNOLOGICAL, ECONOMIC, and SOCIAL forces to reach beyond our base existence to form a society that is CULTURAL, EQUITABLE, and SUSTAINABLE.

Future projects will demand CREATIVE THINKING and INNOVATION in order to transform the unique qualities of the site, its people and its dreams into reality.

The focus for a gathering point can be as simple as a wine jug and an old stone bridge. Bridges and town squares have long established “Place” and created community and cultural crossroads. Retail Centers have historically been organized around or even, like Ponte Vecchio, on top of these crossroads. Our future image shows the reclamation of the obsolete technological artifact, the highway cloverleaf for the community retail-lifestyle center. A bridge that gathers, the cloverleaf speaks of multiple possibilities, connecting anywhere to anywhere else. How exciting and easy it would be to go anywhere, one feels lucky to be open to so many possibilities. One sees the cloverleaf as a bridge from retail’s historical past to its future, a focus for technological ordering, drawing together the brick-and-mortar and online worlds’ vast possibilities of collaborations.

Our goal is to create a communal celebration of a crossroads market that is genuinely positive and fun. Technology does not meet every desire; it opens up new ways and transformations for being ourselves. We shop, utilizing the next evolution of hyperlinks. Stores anticipate our needs, providing price and products in tune with our shopping history. The center’s virtual directory offers option for layering additional information onto objects, instantly revealing product information, links to product reviews, and places to purchase it. We window-shop poolside, utilizing a virtual dressing room. We see art from around the world, as well as that of the local artists in an on-site studio. We spontaneously interact at the peer-to-peer market, tasting homemade jam, bread, and family-made wines. We barter with the craftsmen and artisans, the patterns of play enriching the retail community. We are browsing, meeting people, having coffee, and engaging in the serendipity of life – bumping into the unexpected. Musicians understand gardeners; officer workers recognize artisans. The tactile experience of this kinship opens up a wider reality. The off-the-grid retail center integrates with its natural habitat and evocative resources. Here you can find various species of reintegrated natural inhabitants and fish-rich waters. A rock formation or a fallen tree can engage us in the offerings of nature.

Reality becomes a place of discovery, education and social entertainment – a life of affiliations – uncovering new opportunities to create meaningful and memorable moments. We sit in the plaza as the multimedia solar sails unfurl, giving view of concerts from around the world, or on another occasion, local musicians perform on-site; sports fans at the coliseum attend world-class athletic events and download the replays. Given such virtual and actual participations, banter and laughter flow naturally across strangers and unite them into a community. Here, we can find a positive place for technological devices. There is room in such interconnecting worlds for a joyful family dinner, shopping with a life-long friend, surfing on the Internet and happily zipping around a virtual cloverleaf in tune with technology, glad that one is open to the possibilities of connecting. Reality, virtuality and community collaborate to create communities for celebration of the retail environment.

Retail + Workforce Housing + Transit Oriented Development + Sustainable Design x Green Technology = Wilson Yard’s Vision for the Future

What the developer requested: a mixed-use development on a wedge-shaped former rail yard site, including a vertical urban Target store, affordable and senior housing, new Aldi store, ground-floor retail and offices on upper floors.

What the design team responded with is not just Transit-Oriented Development-based mixed use integrated urban shopping, nor only a new Target store anchoring an environmentally-friendly, multi-use development project – through admittedly it is both of these. What they created – with shopping and a little political finagling – is nothing short of a complete transformation of a tired neighborhood into a thriving, living, breathing community.

What they created is Wilson Yard.

With Wilson Yard the future isn’t tomorrow or next year – the future is now. To evidence this you need not look any further than the Transit-Oriented Development: a vibrant, livable, compact and walkable shopping environment centered on high-quality train and bus systems – all perfectly attuned to our times.

Wilson Yard works on many levels. By incorporating the best tenets and practices of urban planning and design, sustainable design, affordable workforce housing and green technology, the project achieves something more, beyond the realization of a well-designed retail project. The development ultimately completes and heals the site, neighborhood and community where it resides. It’s a case of the universal in the particular. By providing exactly what is needed at the right time and in the right place you end up envisioning the shopping environment of the future.

Covering a full city block, the resulting project is a veritable Rubik’s cube offering shoppers and pedestrians a continuous, seamless shopping environment of integrated interlocking components.

Future-looking without being futuristic, Wilson Yard is an out-of-the-Big-Box, innovative idea that progresses everyone’s current understanding of what the shopping experience can ultimately be.

Anchor: The retail anchor, a new 180,000 square-foot two level Target store with an energy-saving green roof.

The Matrix: 25,000 square feet of additional retail – forming the proverbial simple line of outwardly facing stores and office space – here marrying the project’s anchor with the residences along an attractive new streetscape.

Urban Density: Two rental buildings with affordable units including a mixed-income building accommodating 84 families in one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments and an accompanying seniors complex with 99 affordable one-bedroom unites.

Green Technology: In keeping with Mayor Daley’s ongoing commitment to make Chicago a showpiece city for green technology, the Wilson Yard project will be certified LEED SILVER, the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of green buildings by the U.S. Green Building Council. The project’s sustainable components include green roofs and a solar-reflective roofing system for the residential buildings, collection of storm water and controlled release of waste water, a new green space to serve as the outdoor campus for a neighboring elementary school, and reclaimed parking space beneath the CTA ‘L’ tracks.

Our futuristic vision of the retail real estate industry? It’s being built right here today.

The Mall of tomorrow is a recycled Mall of today as the dynamics of density and environment merge with ingrained traffic patterns to create a whole life community with retail as an integrated component in our super regional mall property. In accord with a whole life site reutilization, our tenant mix would expand to include residential, office, hospitality, healthcare, education, civic and recreational uses integrated with every imaginable merchandise category on-site, situated so business services and supplies are part of the office component, the grocer can be found in the residential area, a drug store is integrated into the healthcare tower and the current Mall at its center with fashion, lifestyle and luxury merchants, anchor users and department stores repopulating the mall building structure of 2009. In addition to wheeled vehicles of diminished sizes, automated parking systems will be de rigueur and will effectively allow each major tenant, mall entry and life integrated use to have front door vehicle drop off with automatic retrieval at customer exists. Vehicular traffic will be restricted on-site and the ring road will be recaptured to create an internal transportation spine linking each use and retail node with a centrally located intermodal transportation gateway via an on-site tramway-bikeway-fitness track, adjacent to a grand, tree lined sidewalk of cafes, boutiques, bars, galleries, and restaurants spilling out from what now is lifeless mall exterior wall. By maximizing densities, introducing new uses, implementing an automated parking solution and reprogramming the ring road, we have eliminated the sea of parking currently surrounding Mall 2009 and largely replaced it with natural open space, parks and recreational areas to enhance the conditions of our built community and the one surrounding us, to ensure we remain a popular destination, and generate income, well into the future.

How do you encourage over 600,000 weekly riders of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (METRO) to get off in a community where they do not live, eat or shop?

Go Metro! CITY PLACE

Go Metro! City Place is a livable sustainable live, work, retail and entertainment destination anchored on an existing rail system and designed under the principles of mixed used developments and sustainable design. With thousands of commuters and tourists passing through daily it provides increased opportunity for the untapped resource of shoppers and will help communities recruit a more diverse and otherwise unattainable set of retailers. As retailing evolves in the face of new delivery channels, overbuilding, the region’s overdependence on automobiles and the threat of environmental catastrophe, the logic for creating “green” retail mixed-use developments around transit becomes inescapable. Airports and mass transit stations offer fresh urban opportunities that 21st – century developer’s need and convenience that customers want.

Future shopping trends point towards customers seeking convenience in the daily routines. Technology will play a large role through online purchasing, “smart shopping carts” and fingerprint payment readers, however locating shopping where customers commute, live or work provides an ideal location for convenience based retail, which includes shops that provide goods needed in every day life, specialized retail stores and an organic market featuring pre-packed meals, fresh local produce and community-based ethnic foods.

As lifestyles become more technology dependent, people will also seek more service-oriented retail that enhances their technology based existence. Young families, children, maturing Gen-Y’ers and entertainment oriented attractions wil be catalysts for urban retail strategies that will create more experimentation in terms of retail formats. Smaller and flexible personal choice stores will displace department stores by providing shopping that engages specialized needs of the shopper. Lower level retailing will be focused on fashion, accessories and technology that are merged in high-tech garments and gadgets. Customers will design their lifestyles online through profiles and “playlists” that will then produce pre-packaged recommendations to be purchased online or viewed in person with the assistance of service “experts”. Upper level shoppers will experience shopping specializing in exclusive, high-end and hand crafted goods immersed in a relaxed shopping destination with amenities such as spas and cafes that will encourage longer stays.

One’s need for interaction affirms entertainment themed retail as a vital component to a retail center with smaller interactive 4D cinemas, themed restaurants, bars and virtual reality rooms that will recreate cosmic bowling, driving ranges and karaoke performances. Fundamental to providing opportunities for interaction and gathering are plentiful dining offerings, as well as, active and passive courtyards, plazas and parks which have historically been mechanisms for successful mixed-use centers.

Go Metro! City Place is the place where a commuter might choose to ride the light rail to wok, have lunch with a friend that lives locally, go to the gym, pick up groceries before going back home or return Friday night for a date with their spouse or that weekend with the family for a concert at the plaza. That is one scenario of the thousands of potential scenarios that could occur daily. Explore the possibility of Go Metro! CITY PLACE.

The 65,000-SM Hyundai Department Store will be more than just an ordinary retail destinations; instead, it will provide a shopping experience that exceeds anything customers in Daegu City have seen before. Through RTKL’s innovative branding and design, the new Hyundai Department Store will be known for its ability to truly respond to a customer’s point of view. From its programming and interior design to its architecture and customer experience, the Hyundai Department Store will be entirely customer-centric. The design creates a new shopping destination for the city, providing a high level of differentiation from the existing retail options. With this shift in focus, RTKL’s design re-position Hyundai, helping the organization build on its strength as a leader in the retail world, while simultaneously enhancing its ability to capture untapped markets.

RTKL’s assignment was to create a new retail center that would ensure consumer power for Hyundai over its competitors. To achieve this, the team devised a strategy to shift the organization’s larger strategic thinking. The Hyundai project will differentiate itself from existing commercial districts by becoming the community hub and will alter consumer perceptions of traditional retail environments. The concept and design scheme creates a shift in traditional design, from classic to iconic. RTKL’s design offers a unique customer-centric environment that features with trendy merchandising and iconic architecture.

RTKL’s design strategy will help Hyundai translate its customer-focused business approach into viable design solutions. After researching Hyundai’s customers and the way these individuals interact with current stores, designers developed a program that keeps the facility energized and in busy at all times. To appeal to the female demographic, RTKL created a modern atmosphere that includes renowned fashion brands, high-end home goods, and luxury amenities such as a spa, gym and beauty salon. Entertainment venues and young trendy retail stores, on the other hand, target teens and young adults. Hyundai will supersede other retail outlets by being, not only a shopping destination, but a hub of social activity. When families visit, they will be able to enjoy numerous restaurants, events, and movies, as well as high-end brands. Likewise, young adults can convene in a safe and exciting setting, RTKL’s design creates an iconic building that will immediately draw loyal customers as well as a new customer base.

We were challenged to design a thriving mixed-use retail destination in the Sinchuan Province of China that could function as a destination experience and serve as a center for community activities and public performances. We were also tasked with making the design sustainable. The result is the Red Ring Mall, inspired by the Lycaena phlaeas Linnaeus, which is native to the Western region of China and is a symbol of long life, beauty and elegance. The building design was inspired both by local tradition and symbolism but anchored by practical necessities. The color red and the number eight figured prominently in the building’s design. Red is associated with happiness and good fortune and eight is a symbol of prosperity and wealth in Chinese culture. The butterfly floor plan also mimics a figure eight and both buildings are eight stories. The large, low-profile footprint of the building is an effective earthquake-resistant property, which is necessary in an area often affected.

The design of the Red Ring Mall pushed the envelope by anchoring the mall with exhibition/performance space at the ground level surrounded by restaurant and retail with terraced levels above for viewing throughout. The complex yields approximately 1,100,000 square feet of retail space below 300,000 square feet of distinctive residences on the top two floors. The retail storefronts have been designed to be clean and uncluttered with movable, curved, translucent interior partitions to create privacy while maintaining accessibility and maximizing flexibility. Transparent and translucent skylights and curtain walls combine seamless skins with high performance environmental control. The profusion of glass also provides multi-level penthouse apartments with gracious views of the city skyline while activating retail storefronts, allowing visual access at the ground level.

Creating a variety of experiences was critical in their dense urban setting, which led the designers to capitalize on underground and overhead areas. The eight store building includes two levels of below grade parking and two rooftop gardens. Each “wing” of the mall will have a rooftop garden with a different theme. One will be a serenity garden creating a quiet place to relax for both shoppers and residents. The second garden will be a children’s garden where the young and the young at heart can discover and experience the natural world.

The design for the Red Ring Mall is anticipated to achieve the minimum gold LEED certification. The Mall is an urban infill redevelopment site with additional infrastructure. The development will utilize pervious paving materials, reuse storm water for grey water supply for both irrigation and building purposes, and spaces, thermal comfort controls for residents, and use of low-emitting materials will assist in improving the indoor environmental quality. The building will provide on-site renewable energy using solar photovoltaic cells to assist with building energy requirements.

The importance of the car in today’s shopping centres is undeniable. Currently there is a trend that sees urban residents take their cars to suburban malls in order to do their shopping. Our vision of tomorrow’s mall environment is one that will transcend a horizontally-minded layout, typical of suburban low land values into a vertically-designed car-oriented downtown lifestyle complex. Another key component in our vision is to transform the traditional ideals of uni-functional shopping centre design into multi-functional malls of the future.

As can be seen in current modern thinking commercial development, the increase of retail activities integrated within intermodal transportation hubs is an essential ingredient to the viability of shopping centres. The stratification and layering of uses proposed in our vision combines all the components found within a typical CBD in what one could term a hyper-densified state. The juxtaposition of mass-transit networks whether surface and/or underground rail or even Interstates below, with a commercial retail core and an important quantity of office and residential uses above, will ensure patronage at all times of the day allowing to exploit the infrastructures required for such a project.

The paperclip looped shape racetrack design will serve as the main artery for the commercial retail development and will be designed to allow the small electric zero-emission vehicles of the future to circulate within the centre and also allow the driver to visualize the various retail stores while being assisted by an on-board (live up-to-the-minute) computer that would alert the user of important items for each approaching retailer. With abundant street parking, multiple access point to parking garages, electronically secured pedestrian zones and highly efficient vertical circulation hafts connecting local residents and office workers as well as mass-transit users to the retail core, the shopping centre is extremely accessible.

With most urban centers lacking in undeveloped land, combined with the importance that cars have in our vision, this concept suspends itself above the vast available spaces of exiting Interstates and entrenched Highways found throughout North America’s urban landscape. The retail stores themselves lining both sides of the racetrack, will create a vast network of rooftop terraces that will emerge as a continuous linear suspended garden which will help solidify the importance of giving a true public role to commercial spaces, which is currently missing, and help bridge some of those artificial barriers produced during or since the Eisenhower Era.

Overall, with the help of efficient strategically placed vertical circulation shafts in order to best serve the multitude of layers within our vision and the creation of a vehicular-based racetrack design, will allow for highly diversified and interactive exchanges between a wide-range of users, functions and uses within the confines of a suspended urban garden.

2030 Shopping Center Concept:

It’s all about experience whether it’s about shopping, eating, playing, working or enjoying art for that matter. What if all this can be experienced in once place? This is what the Futuristic 2030 shopping center concept is based upon. The futuristic innovative design is based on an outdoor open air shopping, eating, and playing environment concept. Very natural geometric forms like octagons, squares, rectangles are arranged in such an interesting manner to create encouraging outdoor spaces with lots of indoor/outdoor activities. Interlocking building elements are designed to create outdoor courtyards which act as lively outdoor gathering spaces. Outdoor areas are designed with very thoughtful landscaping ideas which interact and merge with surrounding architecture.

With the use of some traditional material like stacked stone veneer, different color stucco and brick cladding in combination with some modern elements such as curtain wall glass window, composite metal panel cladding makes these spaces more lively and cheerful. The floor layout is flexible enough to accommodate big retailers as well as smaller retail tenants. Outdoor activity courtyards breaks the long, boring monotonous building mass and façade which brings that much needed humanly touch and fresh feeling. The idea here is to keep open some outdoor and indoor common areas for local art which will encourage some local artists and give great exposure for their work. This will also be open for live bands and local performances which will keep this area lively in the night too. The same outdoor spaces will be used as an eating and gathering place. Some of these outdoor areas are designed with a capability of turning it into an amphitheater for local shows and performances. These unique futuristic ideas will enhance the shopping experience and encourage more people to experience such a dynamic atmosphere.

In 2059 some things have changed – yet…people still want to shop.

Shopping has remained one of the main leisure activities in most societies and shopping is associated with a palace for transaction and gathering. Brands are universal and people can make their purchases anywhere in the world – the interest and excitement is created by the local variation and personal customization backed by the retailers reputation.

Brands and the Growing Awareness of the Consumer
More information about products, manufacturing processes and holistic attitudes of ht Brand is available through all forms of media – especially the web. Healthier living and environments wedded to the planet’s strive to lower carbon emission levels has transformed consumerism. Loyalty to brands is determined by the retailer’s profile and how this meets Consumer expectations. Shopping centers promote the lifestyle choices reflected in the brands.

A Service Oriented Economy: Communication and Customization
The amount of information in the public domain has expanded exponentially. The information is immediately and freely available and is seen as the interactive highway between the Customer and the Retailer. Consumers now rely on consultation with specialist advisers in making their eventual selection of purchases. Moreover, the fashion and instinctive desire is to customize the product to create ones’ own style.

Retail Galleries: The Grand Forum
The Retail Galleries create interest and vista whilst clearly organizing the space and information into merchandising categories. Shoppers are offered a personal service allowing them to better understand the available information and to compare products. Brand products are located around the perimeter of the Galleries, tired for visibility. Each galleria is then themed and uniquely identified. Intervals between adjoining galleries are filled with ancillary areas and viewing platforms to the sculpted shopping environment. Functional warehousing and distribution areas are relegated to secondary space within the complex.

Let’s consider a shopper who would like to purchase a pair of shoes – moving through the Center to the Footwear Gallery. Once inside the shopper could peruse the tiered perimeter areas for brand specific products or they could make their way to the Solutions Lounge to enlist the help of a personal assistant. Vital information such as your individual likes, dislikes, previous purchasing history and body measurements are important for complete product harmonization and are stored on your personal ergo chip. A Body Contouring scan is offered to those who wish to update their measurements. Customer and Assistant could then use one of the Information Hubs to access all information about the style of shoe which could then be matched to the individual. The uploaded personal data from your ergo chip would enable an accurate virtual fitting or the shopper could choose to physically try them on. Point of sale areas would be much more flexible with Accounting Suites available for crediting or debiting and for planning future purchases. Recycling Depots would deal with ‘after wear’ management and the One World Desk would allow customers to donate a percentage of their purchase to assist others.

Galleries provide the personal retail experience in a spectacular environment and continue to contribute to the vibrancy of the communities they serve.

Architect’s Journal Entry 04.21.2035

Reflection:
The world isn’t the same place it was when we embarked upon this professional journey 26 years ago. The work-life concept is no longer concept; it is sustainable living at its best. We don’t have time for a “lifestyle,” but only time for a life. The futurist thinkers thought that destination shopping would give way to single thought purchasing. But, we still crave the full immersion in the contact sport we affectionately call the shopping experience. What is most interesting is how the experience of purchase has woven its way into our every day, and every moment, life. We love how technology and retailers have teamed to bring integrated purchasing into the corner store. Elizabeth’s birthday is next week so I scanned the Picasso print hanging in the corner coffee shop that she has wanted for weeks now, while grabbing my morning latte and peddling off to the studio.

This concept focuses on the role that the shopping experience will play in the urban regeneration of America’s “Rust Belt” cities in the next 20 to 50 years. The beginning for this concept is founded in a typical Rust Belt city, keying in to a local and regional scope of influence. The existing urban fabric, complete with vacant lots and “black teeth,” is exploited for its unique pods of life and inherent activity that make each of these cities unique in their own right. The long-term goal is a self-sustaining, self-generating scenario of distributed shopping experiences in neighborhoods and medium to high density residential and commercial zones. The high-contact sport of retail is fully integrated with the everyday life of the individual. By adapting existing infrastructure the retail become integral to the urban fabric. Individual lives are enhanced by dove-tailing the shopping process into real life rather than a lifestyle. Destination retail is not eliminated by supplemented through this integrated concept of living and shopping.

Imagine if you will! It is the year 2059 and you and your family are heading to the local “Mall” to shop for clothing and other items. The building is much smaller than you remembered growing up and your own kids are laughing at you when you recall the shopping experiences you had 35 years ago as a young teenager. Going to the local Virtual Mall is one of your family highlights for the week, because it has reinforced what it is like to be a family again. Decades ago everyone would go to a Mega Mall and immediately go their separate ways to find the store that contains the products they are interested in. Now all together in one place a typical family will be able to shop, eat, and play together within the same space. No longer will you need to split up and go your separate ways to experience what interest each generation; the experience comes to you!

Fast forward 50 years to see a traditional family walking in the “store” and going through a scanner that reads their shopping patterns, their life history of purchases, and their entire life if you will. As this family moves through the retail environment the sensors within the room react to each person differently by portraying images of the lifestyle and products they are interested in automatically. As the family looks at themselves in the virtual mirror they actually see themselves in the lifestyle of their individual desires. The father sees himself on the gold course in the latest products from Nike, the mother in a lovely red dress she is contemplating for a school benefit, and the children are gearing up for a tennis tournament. If the image is the wrong color they simply ask to see another color. If the shoes really do not match the dress, mom simply asks to see another style. If the family finds something they would like to purchase, the transacting is simply completed with a voice command. This purchase is then sent in the exact size to the family residence from a virtual warehouse and your bank account is a few dollars lighter.

The retail shopping experience fifty years from now will be nothing like we know it today. With advances in technology, future retailers and developers will be able to eliminate the expensive retail build-outs, warehouse space, extensive inventory, sales staff, product theft, and money issues that contribute to the high cost of retailing today. As our awareness of our depleting earthly resources increases, retailers will be forced to completely rethink how they build shopping centers and how they create the shopping experience for the consumer. Large massive shopping centers with multiple boxes of small retailers will go away. Smaller more environmentally sensitive spaces will be the future of the shopping experience. Stores will no longer be specific to products or companies but be intimate multi-media virtual environments that offer ultimate flexibility and an experience for each shopper’s interests and desires.

The WISE MALL is the integration of the following formula, is to achieve and maintain the enchantment alive, is vital that the essence will be the secret ingredient, adventure with in…finding everything in the ALL MALL.

WISE =
Window: As in, a standard window front (retail façade)
As in, interactive top of the line technological use

Interactive: As in, human interactive warmth relations (people with people)
As in, interactive technological achievement

Shopping: Anything…from everywhere…

Experience: Unifying feelings and emotions, and enjoying all the activity (alone, with friends, or family)

The concept is to create an “all in one” premium shopping activity, gathering people to enhance the emotional part of shopping, in a very personalized way. The idea is to creat a very “flexible scenario” in the best possible way. In the “Retail Space” and in the “Common Areas” also by going further and mixing the uses…sometimes will be used as “Retail Space” and sometimes “Common Areas,” depending on what’s needed.

Defining the Parts:
Architectural vocabulary for achieving the right connection: the relation or contextual association, casual or logic, between things, ideas, people, etc…
The place will have an upgraded definition of a plaza
The surrounding buildings/walls will also act as advertisement facilities on the upper part of the wall. They will be programmable screens.
The retractable interactive booths (vertical telescopic adjustment and also horizontal movement) will accommodate most of the needs of the shopper.

How does it work?
The booth is in a strategic place on the plaza. One or more persons enter the booth (must be of the same party). If you are going to buy a garment, the person can see all of the different stores that sell that itrem on the screen (you may see many screens at the same time.) If you want to “try it on,” a hologram appears at the center of the booth. The hologram will be a reflection of yourself in order to see items as they would look on you. The computer will answer all of your questions. The idea is that almost any product will be a “hit” with a discreet and extremely fun way to shop.

What happens if you want to sense (touch, smell, feel the product) then you can go to the store as we know it in the mall, but with the difference that it will be a small one, just with one item of each kind.

The plaza will become a multifunctional and flexible place, where you can do most of the entertainment stuff, shop, mingle iwith people, etc….

“Don’t shop as always, shop WISE”

A Dot Mall Center will be a new type of physical shopping center destination gathering all type of retailers that sell merchandise on-line.

Customers will be able to browse through millions of items sold on-line through the use of cutting edge technology. Many of those items typically cannot be found in regular stores due to space limitations.

As an example, an on-line retail clothing store in this center will have the following elements:

Digital Dressing Rooms: A person enters a cubicle where his or her basic body image is scanned. Then, through the use of voice activated commands or a keyboard, the person will be able to see how different selected clothing items will look on him or her on digital mirrors surrounding the person.

High End Computer Terminals: These computers will be faster and better than the ones people have at home and will feature large plasma screens for a better on-line shopping experience.

Customer Service Desk: Real company representatives will provide customer service and support. There will be also a counter for pick-ups, returns and exchanges of merchandise sold on-line.

Fabric and Material Displays: Shoppers will be able to see, touch and smell samples of fabrics and materials of the products they buy on-line.

Many different types of retailers will be able to join a Dot Mall Center. Just to name a few: toy stores, jewelers, travel agencies, computer stores, furniture stores, real estate services, book stores, etc. All in all, a Dot Mall Center will be the ultimate on-line shopping experience under one roof.