Slow down and smell the roses. That’s Tony Quinn’s advice if you want to achieve a well-designed centre. The new buzzword is ‘Biophillic Design’ – designing to increase humans’ innate connection to nature and other forms of life. Quinn says, you may well ask; “What the hell has this got to do with retail?” Read on…
I’m sure you have all heard of the ‘Slow Food’ movement, which was spawned by the prospect of McDonald’s first Italian outlet in Rome’s Piazza Di Spagna in 1986. For Italians the prospect of ‘fast-food’ was an affront, including Italian journalist Carlo Petrini who issued half joking a manifesto contrary to all things McDonald’s its name: ‘Slow Food’. Petrini promoted a broader philosophy arguing the notion of buying, preparing and sharing a meal and embracing the conviviality and pleasure in doing so. He became the instigator for a far wider slow movement – to live slowly, he says is to live “responsibly and in harmony with nature”.
The movement’s now principle guru is a Canadian journalist, Carl Honore, who wrote a book in 2004, In Praise of Slow, which has become the manifesto for Slow Living.
“’Fast and Slow’ are a shorthand for ways of being, or philosophies of life. Fast is busy, controlling, aggressive, hurried, analytical, stressed, superficial, impatient, active, quantity-over-quality. Slow is the opposite: calm, careful, receptive, still, intuitive, unhurried, patient, reflective, quality-over-quantity. It is about making real and meaningful connections – with people, culture, work, food, everything.” Just what we’re all trying to do with our developments.
Fired by the movement’s success there’s now Slow Travel, Slow Living and even Slow Cities. It is all about stopping and ‘smelling the roses’.
Again, a creation of Italians, the Slow Cities movement – Citta Slow – holds the power of assessing a city or town that wants to be called ‘Slow’. They have developed a manifesto setting out underlying principles, a Charter of Association and a list of member cities and towns.
Sydney Morning Herald journalist Ross Gittins recently wrote an article penned Why we are too busy for our own good. He wrote we have to move faster in big cities because we have so much to do, or so we imagine. We blow our horns at other motorists who slow us down in our rush to our next appointment. Did you in the summer holidays enjoy the chance to take it easy, stay in bed, get up late, potter about, read the paper and avoid doing much? Or did you rush about, keeping busy trying to fit in as much as possible and keeping the kids entertained? Even the retired claim to be busy, often saying I’m busy doing stuff I never got time to do before.
Social author Hugh MacKay in his latest book Australia Reimagined reflects on our ‘culture of busyness’, saying: “No matter how we try to dress it up, disguising it as a virtue or a badge to be worn with pride, relentless busyness is a health hazard – yet another contributor to our epidemic of stress and anxiety”. He goes on to say that busyness can both distract us and insulate us from the needs of people around us, it decompassions us.
You are probably wondering what the hell has this got to do with retail? Well I’m getting there, and this is building a premise that I believe has a lot to do with the future success of our shopping centres. It’s about creating the same meaningful connections. Research suggests that centres that reflect a customer’s personality and enhance their identity actually enhance their willingness to connect.
One of the tenets of the Slow Movement is to preserve cultural heritage. In the same way as Slow Food with its traditional ways of preparation, serving and consumption, the emphasis of cultural heritage is no less important. It is where we make a deep connection to place, people and culture.
It not only refers to the physical qualities and attributes of places but also their historic social values past and present. Intangible qualities such as people’s associations with or feelings for a place are generated by bioregionalism, of supporting local community and engaging in traditional activities.
As the movement says, when we live, work, eat, source our food and pursue recreation within our bioregion we are building a connection to that place. We have been hearing about Place Making for years but not many have achieved it successfully in a real sense.
A further segue – advances in workplace design provide some hints with the new buzz word ‘Biophillic Design’. This is designing to increase humans’ innate connection to nature and other forms of life.
It has been proven in workplace environments that visual connection with nature can lower the blood pressure, heart rate and positively impact attitude on overall happiness so why not in retail centres? So Biophillic Design incorporates natural materials, natural light, natural views and other experiences of the natural world into the modern built environment. It is about the Slow Movement of creating connections with food, nature and people and Biophillic Design combined. Most of our shopping centres are the antithesis of this being inward looking with token landscapes and limited views to the outside.
Here below are some examples I believe meet the criteria (tick the boxes) of achieving what I have been talking about and creating that connection.
The Grounds in Sydney’s Alexandria is an exemplar of all I have been discussing above. Opened in 2012, it is built on creating experiences for the community through quality produce and food with its café, restaurant and bar, bakery and patisserie, coffee roastery, florist, markets, urban animal farm and gardens. The animal farm connects with kids, while adults can do master classes in calligraphy, whisky and coffee.
Camperdown Commons is a community hub containing a working urban farm with a sustainability focused eatery
Camperdown Commons, also in Sydney, is on the site of a former bowling club and is now a reinvigorated community hub containing a working urban farm, a sustainably focused eatery, with produce coming from its own community market garden. The pocket city farm is where you can pick up local grown produce, join a volunteer class and workshop. Common spaces are available for holding community events, workshops and meetings. It’s marketed as a place for locals to relax, learn and belong. The Acre Eatery is the ‘farmer’s home’ with a large long kitchen table where food is consumed in celebration from the adjacent farm dictated by seasons and nature.
There is a children’s play space, the ‘backyard’, that is referenced with the majority of elements coming from and repurposed from the construction. There are four eating options with ‘The Container’ for quick coffee, grab ‘n’ go, the Spritz Bar, Garden Terrace and the Dining Room open from 7am to 11pm.
Mirvac has created Australia’s first Indigenous urban food production farm with cultural start up Yerrabingin on the rooftop of the community building at south Eveleigh in Sydney. More than 30 native bush foods from finger limes and warrigal greens to native raspberries and sea celery are being planted out with large wrought iron trellises forged from the nearby Carriage Works Blacksmith. Combining the principles of native permaculture and Aboriginal culture, it’s intended to have cooking classes and immersive storytelling tours. The programs to be incorporated into the space mean the garden will be self-funding by way of sales of the Indigenous food the farm produces. By understanding what a place means to Aboriginal culture and heritage, it can celebrate that culture in a respectful way and create a destination that is truly Australian. South Eveleigh will eventually be home to 18,000 new workers and residents.
Mirvac has created Australia’s first Indigenous urban food production farm with cultural start up Yerrabingin
Frasers Property is aiming to create the world’s most sustainable retail development at Burwood Brickworks in Melbourne, one that will achieve the highest global sustainability standard. The most striking part of the development will be the 2000m2 urban farm planned for the centre’s rooftop. Part of the team developing the urban farm is sustainability expert Joost Bakker. “There is a hunger for this type of development throughout the world. New consumers want to shop, eat and relax in environments that truly support a sustainable world,” he says. Frasers says the centre will integrate shopping, entertainment and community spaces to create a memorable place for people to have memorable experiences. Watch this space.
Meanwhile in Singapore, the Park Royal on Pickering takes architecture and landscaping integration to a whole new level. By incorporating the same greenery inside and outside and stepped terraces that resemble rice paddies of Asia, the design creates more than 4,900m2 of green space. The visual connection with nature is reinforced with the extensive use of indoor plants. There is an abundance of water features incorporated into sky gardens, lobby and passageways. Further visual connection is provided with views of nearby Hong Lim Park and the terraced gardens are accessible from every room. Extensive use of timber in the main lobby and bar enhance this Biophillic design. As stated earlier, views of nature have been proven to lower blood pressure and heart rate, improve mental engagement and awareness and positively impact attitude and overall happiness. These implicit reactions can translate into a desire to spend more time in the space.
Park Royal in Singapore features more than 4,900m2 of green space
Another example of this Biophillic/Slow Movement approach is under construction at Singapore’s Changi Airport. The Jewel as it is known will redefine the airport and retail experience and is expected to open this year. The Jewel is not a terminal itself but the idea behind the development was to position Changi Airport as a destination in and of itself. With unusual attractions including butterfly and sunflower gardens, free movie theatre, and playgrounds it is set to raise the bar even higher. Famed architect Moshe Safdie says: “We wanted to come up with something truly timeless, and the concept of the paradise garden came about”. The forest valley-like gardens will feature the world’s largest indoor waterfall with five levels above ground covered by a glazed dome.
The ‘Jewel’ at Singapore’s Changi Airport will redefine the airport and retail experience
Mazes designed for families and kids, discovery slides that double as art sculptures and sky walks provide some thrilling activities. There are seven floors dedicated to shopping from the basement to level 5 featuring 280 shops and a 130-room hotel. It is unusual to use nature as the public realm in development in this way.
Developments like these can encourage community attachment, prolong dwell time and wellbeing, and follow the mantra of living in harmony with nature. So let’s encourage slowing down and smelling those roses.
