BAGULA MUKHI COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE

AND PLANNING
BHOPAL
THESIS SYNOPSIS ON
“OPEN MALL- A MIXED USE SPACE”

SYNOPSIS SUBMITTED BY
ARCHANA KHARE
0549AR131010

SESSION 2016-17

COORDINATE BY
AR. DHANESHWAR KOSEY

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

AR. POORNA SHEOLIKAR

RAJIV GANDHI PROUDHYOGIKI VISHVAVIDHYALAYA

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Introduction
A regular mall has its own basic infrastructure. But, the concept of an open mall is different
from traditional or regular malls in many ways. “Open mall takes shopping and
entertainment to a new level. It offers large and dedicated spaces to retailers and customers
alike. Unlike a regular mall, which has everything less than one roof, this one is more like a
high street within a mall itself. The basic shopping area is expanded out.” Elaborating on the
concept, “Open mall or strip mall or plaza is an open shopping area with shops laid out in
rows.

The interesting aspect about such a concept is that it’s quite similar to the ‘high
street’. But, it is much more organised and has all the facilities that a mall offers. Generally,
open malls are single-floor shopping malls and there is ample parking space available in
front of each shop. Sidewalks connect the various zones of the open mall. Typically, open
malls may range from 5,000 to 10,000 sq.ft area.”

“Open malls would be large developments as constructed space staggered with various
building blocks facing open gallerias, plazzas, landscaped parks, water bodies etc compared
to a traditional mall in which shops facing a central atrium. These open areas also help in
cutting down the maintenance costs viz. common area air conditioning cost that would give
a better edge for retailers to survive.” (bureau, 2012)

Differentiating factor
Open malls are different from the existing malls. Highlighting the difference between them,
“The difference between an open mall and an enclosed mall is that, an enclosed mall is fully
of indoors with lobbies, atriums and corridors, which are air-conditioned spaces whereas, in
an open mall, you walk outdoors from shop to shop.” Talking about positive points of an
open mall, “Existing malls in India are either first or second generation shopping areas. Due
to paucity of developed shopping areas, most of the malls have today similar configuration
and tenant mix. However, open malls offer more ‘breathing space’ for consumers and,
hence, will be able to connect better with shoppers.”

Shopping experience
To stay ahead and maximise footfalls, any new mall tries to offer something innovative that
would attract greater number of customers. Coming up of a new concept in malls brings in a
new kind of shopping experience and shoppers would have different reasons of coming to
such malls. Commenting on the attention-grabbing feature, “Major attractions to the
shopper would be more of everything. These malls would become more of attraction
centres than merely a shopping experience. They are expected to increase the average
stoppage time for a shopper by three to four hours, which means more of shopping and

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more of entertainment, all in all, a whole day of picnic. “Imagine a shopping place where
there is no clutter, not much noise and no cacophony and where your entire family can still
spend the entire day shopping, eating and being entertained and get back home
comfortably. Open malls will offer a completely different experience to consumers.”

Successful abroad
Open mall as a concept has been quite popular abroad. Such malls are quite popular in US,
Canada, Australia, Israel, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and also some countries in South-
East Asia. Elaborating on the popularity, “Open malls have been a rage abroad. But, due to
lack of space inside the main cities, such facilities are located a little away from main city.
Also, a lot of such open malls also have been converted into factory shopping areas. If you
visit the Clarks village in Street, England, you would experience a completely different
shopping mood. There are shops laid out in a beautifully landscaped area with a fair mix of
all product categories. There is ample focus on entertainment and eating also. It makes the
destination a fun place where the families come and enjoy themselves as if they have come
for picnic.”

Expected shopping behaviour

The target customers would remain the same- be it for existing malls or open malls. The
difference would lie mainly in the shopping experiences that these malls provide. As these
malls would be more like a picnic spot and the infrastructure would be different from
existing malls’, “Currently, bargain hunters go to popular semi-high streets which are full of
factory outlet shops and other bargain shops such as Maratha hall in Bangalore, VIP Road in
Kolkata, Mahipalpur and Mehrauli in Delhi and Mid-Parel in Mumbai.

These places do not have proper food and entertainment outlets or other facilities
for children. Since open malls offer a host of non-shopping experiences as well, and since
you are walking in an internal corridor (even though it is open to the sky), there is no fear of
getting run over by speeding buses or running motorists. So, in my mind, Indian families
would love the open mall experience.” Talking on the same aspect, “With such malls being
planned in India, mall developers will try to innovate various ways to make their
developments unique and attractive.

For example, some malls would focus on an entertainment park whereas some
would be hardcore multi-brand shopping centres. “Consumers are evolving daily. It is the
need of the hour to develop and adopt such innovative concepts which can serve as a
differentiator and break the clutter. With the onset of open mall shopping, consumers
would get variety of shopping areas with totally different service offering.”

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Future of such malls
It would be too early to say anything positive or negative about this concept. Yet, industry
professionals have views on the success and failure “Given the rapid growth of retail in India
and the youngest population in the world and looking forward to various new and fresh
ideas, we feel that such malls would prove out to be a huge success.” No matter how Indian
consumers respond to such shopping destinations, one thing, for sure, is that these malls
would be a relief from enclosed shopping malls.

Other examples
Another unique concept is open air malls or lifestyle centres, where the common areas are
not “enclosed” air-conditioned spaces, but open air spaces where shoppers and visitors can
experience the natural climate of the city. In the USA, almost 40 per cent of shopping
centres are open air, and in Europe, it is now mandatory to build such centres for energy
conservation.

 The first such centre to open in India was the Nirmal Lifestyle Mall at Mulund, a
suburb of Greater Mumbai. This centre has seen reasonable success and is currently
on an expansion mode.
 The second such centre is the Charles Correa-designed City Centre at Salt Lake in
Kolkata. The Kund at City Centre Salt Lake is a vast multi-stepped plaza designed with
a central water body and a fountain. This area is used by visitors to sit, to idle or just
for soaking in the atmosphere. The Kund is one reason why people spend a longer
time at the centre … often they get up to buy something whereby casual interest is
translated into an impulse purchase.

Why the topic is being selected?

In the growing scale of urbanisation people generally moved to more comfortable ways to
live a life whether it is commercial field or cultural field. Irrespectively is it actually
comfortable?

Mall comprises a big factor in a commercial world. Where people went for shopping,
entertainment, food zone, games etc. An enclosed building comprises of these blocks
separated from the nature.

On the other hand a Haat bazaar, most often called only haat, is an open-air market that serves
as a trading venue for local people in rural areas and some towns of Nepal, India and Bangladesh.

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Haat bazaars are conducted on a regular basis, i.e. once, twice, or three times a week and in
some places every two weeks. At times, haat bazaars are organized in a different manner, to
support or promote trading by and with rural people.

Above categories of shopping complexes has a different quality. Which both comprises in an
open mall having shops, food zone, entertainment zone, landscaped garden, waterbody,
plaza, fountains, parking space etc?

Apart from this, Planning regulates the design whether it suitable or not. The interest in
planning based design leads to this open mall concept of commercial building.

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Aim
 To create a space this can form the node for holding and experiencing commercial, cultural
and social activities.
 To introduces the interrelationship between the cultural and commercial hub by designing
an open mall.

Objectives
 Explore the inter-relationships of the public spaces and the challenges faced by
current shopping malls.
 To analyse how open mall is different from enclosed mall.
 To develop the relationship between commercial and cultural places.
 To analyse the comfort ability of people in different shopping malls.

Tentative Requirements
 Shops for every class
 Multiplex
 Offices
 Waterscape garden
 Entertainment zone
 Parking space
 Food zone
 Plaza

Methodology
Research Methodology:
 Literature Review
 Interviews with professionals
 Case studies
 Surveys with common people
 Site Analysis
 Design Consideration
 Architectural Program
 Zoning
 Master Planning
 Detailed Planning
 Presentation

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b) Research Aspect:
 Meaning of Public spaces
 Commercial, cultural, socially connected building
 Environmental aspects on such type of buildings
 Psychology of Space
 Mixed use of space
 Transform research into building functionality

Preferable case studies

 D.B. Mall, Bhopal

Why?
1. To understand the basic needs for malls for not to be enclosed and how open
mall can be the better initiative for public.
2. To explore the different zones, spaces, divisions etc in an enclosed space to
facilitates the services.
3. To identify the different services applied in a mall for better implementation.

 Haat bazaar, Bhopal

Why?

1. To understand how open environment blends with the shopping experiences.

2. How cultural life mixes with commercial life for the sake of people.
3. To experience the open market with social, cultural and commercial means.

Literature case study

City centre, Kolkata

Why?

1. Mixed use
2. Essence of conventional Indian
3. Shopping markets
4. Open, clustered planning
5. Commercial, cultural, social aura
6. Built form
7. Public spaces and interrelationship of diverse activities.

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Scope
 To understand how the social, cultural and commercial spaces can together
be blend for better sake of people.
 Establishment of a platform to accomplish goals of social interactions and
promoting Indian culture.
 Designing something more appropriate that can better serve for all types of
people.
 Producing something more interactive and better platform for retail market
to serve society well as an architect.
 Purposeful use of my skills and creativity with full inputs and passion.

Limitations
The design thesis would not go into too much of commercial fields and would be going
round about the design and depict the cultural aspects with respect to the public comfort
ability and feel of the place in order to make the building more interactive and as something
to which can relate to. Moreover the thesis will provide with an architectural solution and
not for other aspects like economical, management, etc.

Bibliography

Anon., 2010. Haat bazaar - Wikipedia. [Online]

Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haat_bazaar

bureau, i., 2012. The Most Innovative and Unique Concepts in Indian Malls. [Online]
Available at: www.indiaretailing.com

Bureau, T., n.d. Open malls, a new shopping experience. [Online]

Available at: http://retail.franchiseindia.com/magazine/2008/april/Open-malls-a-new-shopping-
experience.m16-2-7/