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I personally think that new uses for old spaces is quite cool. If you agree, you might enjoy the book "How Buildings Learn". http://www.amazon.com/How-Buildin

by tjic 18y ago

I personally think that new uses for old spaces is quite cool. If you agree, you might enjoy the book "How Buildings Learn". http://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens-Theyre/dp/0140139966 http://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens-Theyre/dp/... HOWEVER. The cost of demolition and new construction is much lower than renovation, especially when the systems requirements (showers, plumbing, etc.) are so different. I feel quite confident stating that - aside from a stunt or two here and there - we will never see malls turned into housing in any sort of massive way.

russell 18y ago
Right you are about the renovation. Fifteen or twenty years ago HP bought the failed Mayfair mall for a song, intending to get cheap office space. The cost turned out to be huge because it turned it wasn't a single building. Each store was a separate building with a common exterior wall. Among the problems were uneven floors, so that a bunch of little shops couldn't be combined into an office space. IIRC the remodeling cost over $25m.
blogimus 18y ago
My interest isn't so much as stopping the mall, and turning it into housing, but (EDIT: being US centric) incorporating the (until suburbia took over vast swaths of land) ages old tradition of living and work/market areas mixed together into the new architecture of suburbia and the malls. I can see a potential access benefit for living within walking distance of daily needs for folks who are losing or have lost mobility. If you don't have to drive, then you use less fuel, if there are other ways that can be implemented to reduce energy consumption, then there is potential "green space." Malls don't have to be just shops, medical facilities, services, light manufacturing. From what I've seen in new stores going into malls, the retail spaces in malls were designed for stores to move in and restructure in that space. Then there is the counterpoint of "Do I want to have my store/business in such close proximity to all these people living?" I think that there is a lot of promise and a lot of problems in this idea of a new suburban "urban center" based around renewing/reinventing the mall. And there is the stigma, to many, of the name "mall."

by tjic 18y ago

russell 18y ago

Right you are about the renovation. Fifteen or twenty years ago HP bought the failed Mayfair mall for a song, intending to get cheap office space. The cost turned out to be huge because it turned it wasn't a single building. Each store was a separate building with a common exterior wall. Among the problems were uneven floors, so that a bunch of little shops couldn't be combined into an office space. IIRC the remodeling cost over $25m.

blogimus 18y ago

My interest isn't so much as stopping the mall, and turning it into housing, but (EDIT: being US centric) incorporating the (until suburbia took over vast swaths of land) ages old tradition of living and work/market areas mixed together into the new architecture of suburbia and the malls. I can see a potential access benefit for living within walking distance of daily needs for folks who are losing or have lost mobility. If you don't have to drive, then you use less fuel, if there are other ways that can be implemented to reduce energy consumption, then there is potential "green space." Malls don't have to be just shops, medical facilities, services, light manufacturing. From what I've seen in new stores going into malls, the retail spaces in malls were designed for stores to move in and restructure in that space. Then there is the counterpoint of "Do I want to have my store/business in such close proximity to all these people living?" I think that there is a lot of promise and a lot of problems in this idea of a new suburban "urban center" based around renewing/reinventing the mall. And there is the stigma, to many, of the name "mall."