Urban planning has undergone tremendous changes from a past when the city and its urban conglomerates were bunched around a central trade district. The city radiated outwards from this nucleus, with residential enclaves and areas of lesser economic importance making up the periphery. This model of master planning, however, has been replaced by the development of gridiron layouts, wherein the city is divided into rectilinear segments called ‘sectors’. Sectors are characterised by buildings consisting of common amenities and approximately span 300 to 500acres, housing 50,000 to 60,000 people at a time. This has led to certain sectoral amenities becoming predominant in a particular region, such as large hospitals and urban transportation hubs.
However, sectors also provide amenities that are located within short distances. In this way, the planning of sectors follows a hierarchy of importance in accordance with people’s needs, with a clear distinction between residential and commercial areas. People’s day-to-day needs are met with trips to the local, neighbourhood level shopping centres. Providing such localised amenities within rectilinear urban pockets is key to satisfying people’s requirements and solving civic problems on an effective scale.
Neighbourhood shopping centres, as opposed to conventional malls, are more open, being primarily designed around boulevards or plazas. They are planned such that they lie within walkable or short drivable distance from residential zones, with the front of the structure directed towards the street. The scale of the structure is predominantly human, which goes well with the urban housing that most Indian cities have. A park-and-shop concept is followed here, much like the examples seen in Gurgaon and other parts of Delhi NCR. Shops serve an all-round purpose, though the focus is predominantly everyday use housed within an informal layout.
The shift in retail experience
Traditionally, the retail story in India has been focused on small shops contained within a house in the neighbourhood. On one end of the spectrum were the grocery stores at the corner of every street, while on the other were the conventional weekly markets, the haats, the sabzi mandis and the flea markets that were the soul of evenings in most towns of the country.
The advent of this century saw the introduction of inward-facing, large scale shopping malls in many metropolitan cities like Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai. These shopping centers were largely answers to the requirements of frequent overseas travellers—the change in affluence levels post- liberalisation meant increased expectations of shopping back home. Currently, we are seeing another dynamic shift in people’s tastes, where the popularity of large-scale, more outward-facing, locally situated retail environments is ever increasing. At the crossroads of organised retail and convenience shopping are neighbourhood shopping centres.
In contrast with conventional malls, which have traditionally been brand-driven, neighbourhood shopping centres are primarily a need-driven potpourri: they cater to everyday shopping, sewing boutiques, electronic stores, repair shops, grocery marts, restaurants and more, while also hosting branded outlets. Many of the stores are multi-brand units that are a testament to the extent of the percolation of international brands into the Indian markets. They retire from the concept of shops within houses and help preserve the nature of spaces as purely residential instead of a mixed character. Providing a dedicated commercial space at a distance from residences helps maintain uniformity in the fabric of the neighbourhood and drive unnecessary traffic away from residential streets. This demarcation of spaces also promotes walkability. Professionals who find their places of employment close to their homes are encouraged to walk to work, thus furthering the regulation of streets and significantly reducing commute times.
Societies that have grown organically over time, like most older Indian cities, influence the blueprint for newer cities. We are seeing traditional radial patterns of growth replicated in a similar manner in the way of local shopping centres catalysing the growth of secondary retail, offices, food districts, et al nearby. In the short term, these neighbourhood shopping centres bring order, growth and convenience as well as employment opportunities. In the long term, however, if the centres become successful on a larger scale, they can affect the character of their immediate environment. The surrounding buildings can change inhabitance and usage in response to their success; from residential to mixed-use and even commercial, the land use pattern gets altered as houses are let in the form of paying guest accommodations, guest houses, diagnostic centres and more.
The impact on the social and economic fabric of the neighbourhood
While the beginning of the twenty-first century was marked by air-conditioned, brand-driven and enclosed malls, the ease of stepping out of your car at the mall’s doorstep created traffic congestion on the approach road. The cost of maintenance and upkeep also meant that a lot of non-premium brands could not afford to be in large organised shopping complexes. For Design Forum International (DFI), a Delhi-based architectural firm established in 1995, this gave way to a hybridisation where the energy and cost-intensive building typology of a mall was combined with the more inviting characteristics of an open bazaar. Through a multitude of retail projects where the indoor shopping centre was clubbed with multifunctional public plazas, a paradigm shift was brought about. Shopping centres like AIPL Joy Street, designed by DFI, explore the concept of high streets, where premium brand retail stands alongside open landscaped spaces. They are also a direct walkup from the street instead of a closed, sanitised box. Here, temperature-controlled and access-controlled spaces are in dialogue with the informal environment around them.
Anand Sharma, Founder and Partner, DFI, says, “We have tried to make shopping more experiential, looking at the built environment through the lens of the users. A conscious attempt is made to design at a human scale, with the open spaces scaled proportionate to the built mass surrounding them. In many ways, it is a call back to the haats, market streets and open shopping zones of our heritage.”
“I think we have been both a part of this flow of change, as well as influenced it,” he adds. Indeed, with a retail footprint across twenty-three cities in India and projects such as Delhi’s famous Select City walk under its belt, DFI has been able to establish leadership insetting the trend for retail design in urban India. Other developments by DFI include El deco Hi-street situated in Panipat and Adani Aangan Galleria, Adani Aangan Arcade and Adani Oyster Grande in Gurugram.
The future of urban shopping
Currently, neighbourhood shopping centres have already started impacting urban planning in the country. By locating large-scale, outward-facing shopping centres within a neighbourhood, traffic loads are being encouraged inside the neighbourhood. Historically speaking, a mixing of residential and commercial in an Indian context is an inevitable outcome of any kind of segregation enforced at the planning level. Even in smaller, tier II and tier III towns, which have always been of the mixed-use kind—with retail on the street level and residential above—the emergence of this trend in retail spaces is visible. Says Sharma,
Therefore, a sectoral level of planning is required where these centres are permitted only on certain road widths and above to ensure a sustainable model of development. From the point of view of urban planners and statutory authorities, it is important to intersperse neighbourhood shopping centres with areas that are reserved purely as breather spaces—open greens and zones of recreation at the neighbourhood level. “This trend is here to stay,” concludes Sharma.