In her graduation project ‘The shoppingmall as an urban catalyst. The case of Leyweg Winkelcentrum (The Hague)’ Pelagia Spyridonidou explores the new role that shopping malls, as urban centers, can adopt in an ever-changing context as condensers of public life.
Can you (briefly) explain your choice of subject?
Throughout my academic journey, I have always been fascinated by the interplay between continuity and change, the concept of tabula plena, and the definition of heritage in such a context. Therefore, choosing the Heritage & Architecture studio for my master’s thesis was an inevitable decision.
Never had I imagined, though, that a post-war shopping mall could be regarded as an urban catalyst, facilitating change while maintaining continuity as an urban anchor in the city. Since shopping malls were never my go-to places, this turned the whole endeavor into a unique research and design challenge; unraveling their unique social, spatial and urban role as young heritage.
What or who are your sources of inspiration and can you briefly explain this?
“The best environment is one in which there are both new stimuli and familiar reassurances, the chance to explore and the ability to return.” This phrase by Kevin Lynch has always been central to my project and a sort of compass, both in research and design. My work aimed to explore how post-war Dutch shopping malls, as urban structures, can accommodate change not only in the present context but also in the future, while ensuring continuity. Overall, the result rather than a final static product is a design methodology toward the resilient future-proof management of heritage resources.
State and (briefly) describe the key moment in your graduation project
A key moment in my graduation project that certainly affected its overall trajectory was my visit to the archives, where I discovered the true nature of Leyweg, my project site. Comparing the glorious and festive photos, descriptions, and original intentions for this shopping mall as a community meeting point with the desolation I experienced during my site visits made me delve deeper into the historical and social context of the area. This juxtaposition highlighted the mall’s potential for revitalization and guided my focus on how to restore its role as a vibrant urban core.
Can you (briefly) explain what design(ing) means to you?
As time passes, I find myself increasingly drawn to the idea that every project is essentially a story of reuse. Either it is a shopping mall or a landscape project there is always something prior that we need to take into consideration, assess it, reveal it, and implement it into our design, so as to always leave traces of what used to be. Over the years, I’ve come to believe that the best design emerges from a place of observation and respect.
What hope / do you want to achieve as a designer in the near and / or the distant future?
As in my master’s thesis, my focus as a designer lies at the intersection of architecture and urban design, under the lens of tabula plena. Researching existing structures in diverse urban contexts has been pivotal in understanding the layers of history, culture, and functionality they embody. This exploration serves as a foundation for my design philosophy, which prioritizes building upon existing elements rather than starting from scratch, ultimately aiming to create sustainable and contextually sensitive interventions that resonate with the communities they serve.
Project text
Once bustling urban cores, post-war Dutch shopping centers now face neglect. However, within this decline lies a vision of renewal. The project explores The Hague Leyweg Winkelcentrum’s transformation into a ‘skill city’, reimagining shopping centers as hubs of production and social cohesion, while highlighting the potential of heritage resources as catalysts for urban revitalization.
Dutch post-war shopping centers -perceived initially as “the heart of the city”- due to changing societal and shopping patterns face increasing vacancy rates and gradual dereliction. This shift, in combination with the gradual acknowledgment of post-war architecture and its embedded values as new heritage, render the demand for their redevelopment and reintegration urgent. Hence, the project explores their potential futures, through the re-establishment of Leyweg Winkelcentrum in the Hague Southwest as a “skill city”; an urban structure where crafting, learning, and co-living are entangled.
The shopping center, dealt with as a complex urban structure interconnected with the adjacent urban fabric rather than a single building, is transformed into a community core, restoring its latent identity as the heart of the city while empowering the lower social strata of the area. The makers and the production of goods are brought back to the center of community life; transforming the mall from a place of mere consumption into a locus of production, introducing a more circular and sustainable approach to these urban cores. More specifically, the empowerment of the existing population, the social cohesion of the neighborhood and the integration of the currently secluded population are expected to be achieved through the development of new skills, the exchange of culture and knowledge as well as the organization of a network of support for the people of lower social and financial strata. The proposed program addresses social issues of the area with the aim of cultural, social, environmental, and economic sustainability in the long term but also the uncovering, preservation, and showcase of existing cultural values.
To do so, following the “research by design” methodology, shopping centers were spatially investigated under the scope of urban adaptability, while incorporating the notion of continuity, in the sense of embedded heritage values; resulting in a framework to assist the redesign on different scales.
This framework, even though based on the specific spatial attributes of Dutch post-war malls that were re-interpreted and incorporated in the design proposal, aspires to be seen as a step towards the reconciliation of continuity and change and could also be applied in other types of buildings of modern heritage that share common features.
Overall, the project rather than a final product serves as an empirical test, validating the hypothesis that heritage resources can act as resilient catalysts, accelerating urban processes when managed with the proposed situated design methodology, reconciling the concepts of urban adaptability and continuity.
Presentation and project book
More images
Name
Pelagia Spyridonidou
email
linkedin
Start graduation
September 2021
Graduated
June 2023
Education
Delft University
