New London Architecture

‘Open streets’ and public realm could breathe life into retail

Friday 29 May 2020

David Taylor

Editor, NLQ and New London Weekly

Utilising more outside public space could be one way that retail and other businesses gain a much-needed resiliency in a post COVID-19 landscape.

That was one of the messages to emerge from an NLA NYLON webinar held with experts in their fields in New York and London on Wednesday.

New York has always had ‘an incredible street life’, said Benjamin Protsky (check) of the city’s Centre for Architecture opening the debate, but there were anxieties about retail before the pandemic, with rising vacancy levels and only high end luxury brands proving resilient despite hopes of temporary schemes and pop-ups. The pandemic, though, has ‘exacerbated the desolation’.

 
Kohn Pedersen Fox design principal Brian Girard said as architects they ‘take inspiration from commerce and marketplace’ with this moment perhaps being akin to the period before the great cast iron marketplaces were built. Larissa Ortiz of Streetsense said that cities are economic units that form if and when there’s an economic rationale – New York’s life began as New Amsterdam providing a market for beaver pelts and access to Europe. But the success when the demand for goods dries up and retail’s customer base shrinks and density is turned ‘on its head’ is less clear. The future will be about more product delivery and pick up stores with more ‘touchless environments’ both in the public realm and inside businesses, perhaps altered dining rules and targeted interventions like street seats, parklets and street closures ‘very much under consideration’. Entrepreneurs in the city will overcome nearly anything, though, said Ortiz. ‘I am very hopeful and do see opportunities where we can be resilient’.

Principal-in-charge at WXY Studio Clare Weisz said that public space and thinking about where retail happens outside of stores is key, with the prospect of the ‘open street’ drawing on the successes of Times Square when pedestrian space got expanded. Certainly, said James Rayner of Argent, retail lead for King’s Cross, working from home is leading to a 20-40% drop in footfall so retailers must work harder to give customers a reason to visit. The global consumer is younger and buying less and is more concerned with sustainability, with consumers likely to gravitate towards the trusted, familiar, unique and local, shunning ‘fast fashion’ in the process. Making entertainment ‘shoppable’ will likely be one solution. ‘We're going to need to entertain and engage’, said Rayner. ‘These two words I think are crucial to future-proof built environments…the internet won’t kill physical retail. It will liberate it’. The public realm, he added, will provide ‘the antidote’. Other speakers included Gort Scott’s Fiona Scott who looked at the ‘incredibly mixed urban ecosystem’ of high streets and need to overturn inflexible commercial use classes and ease licencing to allow more streets and outdoor spaces to come to retail’s aid, and New West End Company chief executive Jace Tyrell, who talked of the ‘huge challenges’ of social distancing for shop staff and customers but also the ‘interesting experiment’ of using the public highway and streets in the coming weeks and months as well as longer term structural change.

On Thursday the NLA ran a think tank with London & Partners as part of its programme on Urban Innovation and how tech and data might be able to contribute in solving issues in a post-COVID London. 

The session was under Chatham House rules, but issues raised included: 

·     how London can lead the way on innovation, facilitated by greater collaboration across the built environment; 
·     the need to be more flexible in the use of space; 
·     capitalising on cycling, the future for public transport, e-scooters and other mobility strategies and ways to avoid cars dominating again; 
·     deliveries, including through airspace innovation using drones and robots whilst adequately considering technological and physical interfaces; 
·     a refocus on neighbourhood scale and valuing the local;
·     the importance of trials and test beds; 
·     building trust between tenants and landlords through innovation; 
·     virtual planning; 
·     health and safeguarding buildings; 
·     privacy; 
·     ‘Addressing the digital divide’ – 
·     and even addressing the provision of toilets and other ‘forgotten bits of infrastructure’…


David Taylor

Editor, NLQ and New London Weekly


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