Negative Effects of Shopping Malls Sena İzgi 020040523 Reyhan Ateş 020070804 Cem Soyer 020080010 Faculty of Architecture English 201 Tim Davis December 30, 2010
Negative Effects of Shopping Malls Thesis: Shopping Malls, contemporary versions of ancient “forums”, need to be designed more carefully, since they have failed to live up to our ideals by causing negative effects on environment, handicapped people and human psychology. I. Negative effects on environment A. Urban planning 1. Land value 2. Parking areas 3. Scale diversity a. Large building proportions b. Excessive amount of construction B. Energy consumption 1. Light pollution a. Over illumination b. Retail stores’ lighting 2. Heating and cooling systems C. Air pollution 1. CO 2 emissions a. Urban traffic congestion b. Suburban travelling 2. Traffic overflow II. Negative effects on handicapped people A. Shopping malls and disabled people
1. Shopping malls’ meaning for a disabled person a. To do shopping b. Being social B. Difficulties 1. Building circulation 2. Store circulation C. Suggestions 1. Reasons of problems 2. Solutions 3. Applicable good examples III. Negative Effects on Human Psychology A. Impulsive Shopping 1. Economical Collapse a. Individual Budgets b. Small Businesses 2. Extravagance B. Growth of Addiction 1. Triggers of Shopping Addiction 2. Extreme Focus 3. Aggression C. Deceptive Feelings 1. Deceptive Conditions 2. Supraliminal Stimuli 3. Manipulative Designs
The contemporary shopping mall tends to shift the urban focus and define the term ‘city centre’ as itself. Considering the rapid increase of new built malls, it is obvious that in the future, neighbourhoods will be surrounded by a number of shopping centres, where people satisfy whatever they need in daily life. Even today, they play the role as attraction points with an average population of thousands and reaching millions at weekends, where people are not only coming for shopping but also for business, entertainment and sightseeing. Mall of America, one of the biggest malls in the world with 40 million visitors every year (MOA Facts, n.d, ln. 17) - which is more than the visitors of Disneyland, Graceland and Grand Canyon combined - is a proof of the almost magical lure of shopping centres. However shopping malls, contemporary versions of ancient forums, need to be designed more carefully since they have failed to live up to our ideals by causing negative effects on environment, handicapped people and human psychology. Careless design and development strategies cause negative effects on environment. To begin with, shopping malls and their interactions with other urban elements are important at the planning stage. They are designed as attraction points that many people are expected to visit which unintentionally increases the land value of the selected site. With the increment of population, different needs appear naturally. Maintaining enough parking space for the cars is sometimes a difficult issue to cope with and it can lead to other problems as well. In the case of Beverly Connection Mall, pedestrian access of the mall across a "pool of cars" has been argued for such a long time that designers tried hard to solve this problem by allowing some functional tunnel structures and entrance facilities (Gresco, 2005, para. 2). Increasing the total construction area of malls can give some extra room but this is not a solution that can overcome the problems. With large building proportions in urban pattern, it is very hard for shopping malls to blend into the neighbourhood environments. Although, as Frieden asserts, in the past during the development process, shopping malls were designed as detached large
spots of the neighbourhood in urban pattern which were inhospitable to outsiders (1994, p. 66), today the accepted trend is blending the shopping environment with the current living areas which can make the inhabitants use the mall more for their spontaneous needs. With this concept, shopping malls become an unmistakable figure while planning new residential areas which leads to more and more malls. Together with their uncontrolled development, they can involve different environmental issues such as pollution, as a result of more energy demands, or traffic congestion which is both a major stress factor for modern humans and also a time-wasting event besides its environmental damage. Another negative effect that should be noticed is energy consumption as it is becoming a more important issue nowadays in a world sacrificing its natural resources to live in higher standards of luxury but receiving more wastes or harmful refuse in return and horrifyingly not aware of these results at all. Polluters of environment is not only limited with solid wastes but also including out of purpose usage of everyday life materials like lighting systems causing light pollution. Since the growth across the country-side, light pollution becomes a regular problem that blocks the visibility of stars at nights even in good weather conditions which is mostly the result of shopping centres and their excessively lighted parking spaces (Reese, 2000, para. 2). Despite the fact that outdoor illumination of dark areas at night is concerned with security or crime reduction and has positive effects on them, the lighting systems should be designed in their limits while allowing the perception of beautiful nightscapes especially in sub-urban areas. Another issue about lighting is illuminating indoors including the retail stores, showrooms and their front-faces where very different and eye-catching concepts are applied to provoke the senses of consumers and awaking the curiosity to get inside and buy something. Although that is a common and acceptable marketing trick, Beyard also asserts that up-to-date lighting technologies helps the efficient usage of light which both prevents light pollution and energy waste while saving the amount
of energy investments (1999, p. 101). Considering the newest and environmentally more responsible solutions, it is not so hard to create the same magical effects with advanced LED technologies or plasma screens which could be used for many purposes besides illuminated advertising images on walls or highlighted signage to define spaces. As ever-changing shopping activities depend on seasonal conditions and weather situations, need of heating and cooling systems' installation on shopping malls is required even though they are seldom effective because of open retail designs or circulation areas specifically designed to make people feel outside and breathe fresh air. Beyard points out that heat insulation solutions can prevent the loss of conditioned air and contribute to the efficiency of power usage in shopping malls (1999, p. 93). Naturally there can be some additional costs because of insulation materials and their relatively expensive application spending, there is no doubt that in time the money will return to retailers in terms of lowered electricity usage and positive attitude to brand identity of being environmentally friendly. Air pollution generated while accessing these malls is another significant issue to discuss. As the amount of vehicles stuck in traffic increase, the amount of CO 2 emission increases as well. According to a research in Southern California, reducing the stop-go action of cars by controlling the traffic flow with regulation of speed limits could lower the CO 2 emission rates up to 12 percent (Barth, 2008, p. 144). That could lead to inspiring ideas while developing such transportation environments without many intersections and traffic lights but keeping traffic in a regular flow with as straight, uninterrupted streets as possible. Another pollution source is accessing sub-urban malls which cause people to travel on highways at high speeds. Speeds above 65 mph are not only increasing the CO 2 emissions but also a threat for passenger safety (Barth, 2008, p. 263). Moreover, public transportation solutions or sub- urban train routes could be useful and safer ways to connect the malls with city. In addition, traffic overflow which is mostly the result of random development of crowded areas with
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