Yesterday I made a site visit to the Market Square in Kitchener, Ontario. In my mind it’s the poster-child of my thesis, since it was the first mall of its kind that I ever knew.

I was able to get photographs not only of the general mall area, but also of the Goodlife Fitness and The Record. It gives a good sense of the ways that the space can be reused and also alerted me to the stark difference between the mall’s architecture and the architecture of its anchor (once an Eaton’s department store).

The department store style of architecture is extremely versatile. Essentially, the space is a big box, parceled into two floors. The only structural elements throughout the department store are evenly spaced columns. The columns divide the space into nearly cubic units, giving occupants and redesigners a simple visual (and mathematical) reference point to re-imagine the space.

In the case of The Record, these pillars are unobtrusive enough to allow large, open spaces filled with cubicles and office spaces, but densely distributed enough to facilitate enclosed areas that serve as meeting rooms and offices for managerial staff. Some of these enclosed spaces have caps on them, appearing almost like a building within the building, making the meeting areas more private from an aural standpoint.

The open areas of the mall appear to be much more difficult to deal with. The coiled MileAisles (as described in the last post) and the distinct mall architecture make the central area of the Market Square difficult to be re-imagined as anything other than a retail space. Many of the once-retail spaces are sitting empty now, though a handful remain. What can you do with a space that was designed for retail so specifically but generally can’t support retail tenants?

One of the more interesting adaptations of this area has been accomplished by triOS College. They have taken over the East bank of shops in the main area and turned them into class rooms. However, the class rooms do not open up into the main area of the mall. Instead, the entrances face inward, into the bowls of the mall (an area I believe was probably part of the mall’s maintenance hallways at one point). The college’s hallways are only accessed through two doors into the Market Square’s retail area: the front office, which occupies an old retail space near the mall’s King Street entrance, and the “student entrance,” which sits awkwardly across from a hip hop clothing store, one of the few shops left. Why not open up the classrooms into the mall itself? Ambiguity of identity? Security issues?

It seems to me that a mall’s style of architecture could be very suitably used as a school. Not just the empty shops, but the pedestrian walkways themselves. They are perfect for the types of social interaction that facilitate learning and innovation among academics. Apparently in Pheonix, Arizona, there is in fact a failed shopping mall that has been converted into two schools and a police station. Perhaps this could be one method of re-using the Market Square and other failed malls in Southern Ontario.

In any case, here are the rest of the photos from my gallivanting around the Market Square yesterday: