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 its 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/