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

1
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.”

2
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 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.

3
 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.”

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.

4
  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.
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.

5
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

6
  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

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.

7
  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.

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

8
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/