52
53
AHO WORKS STUDIES 2012-2013
Architectural Studies
Retail and the Revival of the Central City
by the often over-sized pedestrian streets with
a proportion of empty shops found in most
places. ‘Dead malls’ are now a fact in Norway,
but just as prevalent is the ‘deadly triangle’ of
semi-dead shopping centres in close proximity
to semi-deserted pedestrian streets in towns
with external shopping centres, such as the
situation in Moss.
In many places the public urban realm is
developed and operated by private actors. Mu-
nicipalities often appear unwilling or incapa-
ble of remediating the dying pedestrian streets,
or devising new visions and roles for the town
centres. There is a lack, both of awareness of
challenges and opportunities, but also of ap-
plicable tools to reanimate the town centres.
Planning can regulate size and location of cen-
tres, but tools to regulate the architectural de-
sign quality and performance of the centres on
the scale of individual urban spaces are much
more scarce.
New urban spaces
Despite the negative urban impact often attri-
buted to shopping centres, they are a source of
pride in many places. They offer amenities and
easy access to trends and contemporary con-
veniences, and they represent something mod-
ern compared to existing retail and urban space.
New shopping centres have been key in
revitalizing failing old retail districts, former
industrial and infrastructural zones. They may
also form the core of entirely new town cent-
res, such as the one being developed at Aksdal
outside Haugesund. As shopping centre devel-
opers respond to new legislation, new types of
centres emerge, that do not necessarily match
the negative preconceptions shared by many.
We see still more examples of shopping centres
that do not follow the ‘classic’ recipe, but work
to revitalize historical districts, struggling
town centres or even post-industrial or infra-
structural zones. We see centres that include
untraditional functions and even ‘stealth cen-
tres’ that look like ordinary shops along a street.
A celebrated contemporary example of a
retail based city centre revival project is Liv-
erpool One in England, where a desolate area
was developed in order to counter retail leak-
age. While the commercial model is that of a
shopping centre, the spatial model resembles
the existing city centre to the degree that it
is not clear to the visitor when or where the
‘centre’ is entered. The development consists
of an assortment of urban spaces and buildings,
including department stores, underground
parking facilities, arcades and squares as well
as seemingly ordinary streets and a public
park. The architectural quality of buildings
and spaces is unusually high for a retail devel-
opment, and through the varied designs by a
number of architectural practices it imitates a
historic cityscape.
The centre has been hugely commercially
successful and has also revitalized the Liverpool
city centre. It indicates a spatial and organisa-
tional model for city centre regeneration that
will become influential in the years to come. The
composition and scale of certain of the spaces
produced in Liverpool One seems to offer a
credible alternative to the struggling pedestri-
an retail precincts in many Norwegian towns.
New social spaces
Security guards in red uniforms police Liver-
pool One. Nevertheless, the homeless seller of
The Big Issue (a magazine about homeless-
ness) walks the streets un-accosted—and ac-
cording to his green jacket the centre actually
sponsors him. One can speculate on whether
this is an attempt to obscure the access control
of the centre.
