Gremlins 2: The New Batch

In Farquhar's article he talks about the brand gremlins and discusses what it is and how it affects the industry. Brand gremlins are people who are involved with a certain organization that doesn't really help them but instead diverts them on a tangent in regards to their goals. So organizations such as Sears Clothing, Woolworth, Conway are such examples or department organizations that have ran out of business or declared bankruptcy. However there are companies that have survived these brand gremlins such as Best Buy, Macys, Nordstrom, Saks 5th Avenue have all survived or have yet to experience these Brand Gremlins.
Just like in the movie, the Brand Gremlins ruin a company and can take it from a powerful company into a bankrupt one. Every now and then we hear these things happen and find out the person(s) responsible for these mishaps. Perhaps that this is a good thing for our society because with every death of a department, comes out a new one. Also, with new brands come out new Brand Gremlins....a new breed.

brand longevity

The little things count. Brand longevity is something that businesses and their marketing directors must work hard to maintain. It actually amazes me that brands can be updated and altered so that businesses stick around for years and years. How did Macy’s continue to thrive, while other department stores disappeared? Established companies update their brands and finesse the operations of their business to meet the expectations of their customers. Not only are brands updated, but these companies have also been successful in avoiding “brand gremlins.” Farquhar defines brand gremlins as “those people, processes and other entities that are out of alignment with the organization’s overall brand strategy.” Brands are expected by customers to have a certain level of quality, regardless of the brand type or the age of the brand. Customers expect good service and constant availability. The brand defines its own set of rules for operations and image as well, which are well defined and are used to market the company. Brand gremlins sneak into the everyday operations of the brand and although fixable, begin to eat away at the draw of the brand.

Alabama is for lovers

Place branding, like conventional branding, has its ridiculous moments. Such as the billboard in suburban Atlanta proclaiming "Alabama is for lovers." You don't have to be a yankee to find something a little odd in that statment. When I think of Alabama, I think of racism, the Civil Rights Movement, amazingly unintelligible Southern redneck accents, and so on. I certainly don't think to myself, "Where should I go on my honeymoon? I know!..." In the same way, I certainly don't associate Denmark with "cosiness, straightforward, design, bright, and oasis," (nor do I assume that all Danes make a habit of mixing nouns and adjectives in lists). Even if I did associate Denmark with all those things/descriptors, it wouldn't necessarily make me want to spend the couple thousand or so dollars it would cost to spend a week there as opposed to neutral, mountains, multi-lingual, bankers Switzerland.

Let's ponder crowded, one-child, red, Three Gorges, not-so-communist-anymore China for a second. Beijing will have the Olympics very soon. For the past couple of years the Beijing government has been enforcing a politeness campaign under the auspices of Beijing's Capital Ethics Development Office with the sole purpose of making Chinese citizens more Westernly polite in an attempt to impress all the visitors for the Games. In waging this $2.5 million campaign, the Chinese government is trying to do exactly what Blichfeldt claimed was impossible: to manage place brands by altering the behavior of the inhabitants of that place. While the success of the campaign was/is mixed at best, the very attempt to control people's lives to such an extent is interesting. (Not only did the government want people to alter their public lives - stop crowding busses, spitting, cursing, etc. - but also to tweak their private lives - no burping/farting/chewing-with-your-mouth-open at the table. As a nominally communist state, China can get away with such things, but elsewhere, Blichfeldt was correct in saying "locals are beyond the direct control of marketers" (Blichfeldt 398).

However, to me, the very necessity of (and the author's assumptions and implications inherent in) that statement are frightening. OF COURSE the locals are (should be) beyond the direct (or any) control of marketers. If they were, then the whole world would be DisneyLand, and we would all cease to be people; we would become characters in fuzzy suits, all living for the sole purpose of entertaining our "guests," never escaping that demeaning role until we ourself become "guests," willingly turning from slave to slave-master.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-02-08-china-manners_x.htm

Caution: Private Property

“…reasons law and geography have remained so uninterested in each other. By comparison, if these two fields have remained distant, architectural theory and the law have barely acknowledged each other’s existence.” (Lonsway 348)

Walt Disney was a genius. He has always been associated with animation and making children around the world happier and even bringing out the child in adults, but his business side often remains hidden. I know we have discussed this colossal monster that is the Disney Empire, but once again, I find myself amazed. 50 years ago, he was doing things that only now companies are beginning to do.

He really pushed new ideas that had huge architectural implications. His idea of creating a buffer zone of purchased land around the entertainment center was a great way to avoid “suburban sprawl butting right up against the edge of the entertainment destination. It makes Disneyworld a true getaway. Not to mention, the many ways Disney got around private ownership technicalities while also avoiding issues with legalities in the state of Florida were very clever. I don’t think any company up until Santana Row has really pushed the ideas represented in Disneyworld as well as Walt Disney did. How clever to obtain full control while giving the appearance that the control is in the hands of others. When Disney set up a community which required a voting population, it seemed like a fair democratic system, when in all reality the only voters were Disney employees. Disney took Mob Tactics and instead of using a restaurant as a front, he used a big playground.

The entirety that is Disney also does such a fantastic job at implementing Lonsway’s next point. They put up a façade of public while truly they are entirely private. When I read Lonsway’s writings about this issue of Public and Private I thought about the “Privately Owned Public Spaces” Project in NYC. Through this system private companies looking to build on a specific site are able to get around certain building restrictions if they claim to offer a P.O.P.S. For example, if a Day’s Inn wanted to construct a hotel, they could get around set-back restrictions if they offered a percentage of the site up as a public space with 24-7 access. Often however, these spaces go under-managed and are not open 24-7. The companies use them as a front to appear like they are providing for the city while they are not.

“Extrapolated, this argument suggests that no matter how ‘accurately’ a private venture is symbolized as a public one, its private status is incontrovertible, based ultimately on the private contract of property ownership.” (Lonsway 351) Under this concept, even if something looks public, or as much as it may even perform like an actual public space, it is private when it comes to legalities. So, then I postulate, if someone were in a P.O.P.S. in NYC and was injured, could they then sue the owner of the property for lack of upkeep on equipment? Or as a counterclaim to that argument, could the private company in reverse then sue the individual for trespassing on private property?

Ultimately, I feel like spaces such as these P.O.P.S. or company towns like the one in the Marsh case, even if they appear public, need to have asterisks under the welcome sign that say “This town is privately owned by the Blank corporation and thereby private property.” Yes, it is ridiculous, but in today’s sue-happy society you, as both an individual and a corporation, need to cover your bases. In a society where individuals need a note on a cup of coffee saying “Caution: Contents HOT!” we obviously need new signs saying “Caution: Private Property!”

Disney Diluted

In cases where brand is intimately linked to place, to what degree is it possible for a brand gremlin to undermine the sanctity of a themed landscape? In the case of Disney, there was initially a clear (although likely unintentional) intrusion from outside its walls – the success of Disney led to intense development of the surrounding area, and in turn forced Disney to acquire for itself what land that it otherwise could not control. Purchasing this land for use as a buffer zone makes sense in that it helps to contain fantasy solely within its borders, but was 110km2 really necessary to accomplish this? Although my knowledge on the subject is extremely limited, I would argue that, although the purchase of 110km2 of surrounding land does indeed protect the realm of fantasy from distillation by outside forces, a more problematic scenario presents itself as a distillation in the opposite direction - what happens when surrounding hotels and restaurants begin to “Disneyify” their services; not to the point of total immersion, but to try to assimilate themselves into the realm of fantasy on the most basic level? Ultimately, Disney’s purchase of the surrounding land suggests that a themed environment must be fully immersive and isolated to prove successful; the undermining of Disney’s borders by the extension of a pseudo-Disney environment causes one to question the validity of the “real” staged environment.

Gremlins

While the town of Chickasaw may seemingly be public, it is in fact private, despite “its design signifying a traditional public space” (Lonsway). It seems as though the town of Chickasaw struggles to keep itself independent, due to the many spatial connections which service a town, whether it attempts to remain off the grid or not. Although these spatial conflicts seem outrageous, as architects a provocative issue comes to fruition when considering public vs. private, and how to design and develop a project which may interact with its public surroundings, but must remain private, thus autonomous. It is within these spatial connections that one may make a link to the architectural discipline and the idea of ‘brand gremlins’, which are “the people and processes responsible for seemingly small but repetitive mishaps…that progressively undermine a brand” (Farquhar). Along with the notion of the ‘brand gremlin’ comes the challenge of identifying a strategy to turn what is wrong with a particular product, use its assents, and develop it into something which benefits the brand. These so called ‘brand gremlins’ hold a significant relationship to architecture as a discipline, despite the fact that they seemingly hold no spatial concept.

In relation to ‘brand gremlins’, an architect/developer may go into a project with a specific idea about how their project could react with the landscape, thus developing a formal strategy based off of the existing site. After further land testing, the developer reveals that the ground contains some contaminates from future use, thus some land must be manipulated. It is then that the architect must use the assets of the land, despite that it has changed from the original concept, to still design and build a project which remains seamless to its surroundings, and “…turn gremlins into advocates for the brand” (Farquhar).

A Public Affair?

Politics and court precedents always set for me a certain wonder for what will arise as a result of them. I wonder how the founding fathers of America would feel about how the second amendment extends to assault rifles when their goals at the time were simply to make up for the lack of a standing army. In the private rights and free speech debate in such places as malls and Disney, there’s obviously a lot of ambiguity for how laws put in place before electricity was really harnessed end up being interpreted in today’s day and age. Beyond even ideas like Disney policemen giving false impressions or protesting fur in front of Macy’s, I start to consider what implications ‘private domain’ may begin to have with the future of the internet.

The internet is inherently extremely ‘public’. It gives off all of the implications of a something that is public for personal gain (be it marketing or showing off a toy soldier collection) and therefore by the Chickasaw precedent of so many years ago which stated “The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.” (326 U.S. 501, 1947: 505, quoted in Lonsway 354)

So when a website gives off all the ‘identity’ signals of something public and is distinguished only by the fact that it is privately owned, can they get mad (as in ‘suing’ mad) when someone posts something insulting to them on their website? What about when someone is in a public forum on privately record company’s website and starts promoting their own show or band? Today, that’s usually called ‘spamming’, and like the ‘flyers in the mall’, one’s immediate reaction might be ‘well no, because that website belongs to that record company’.

But imagine if you will, a world many years from now where nearly everything you ‘need’ can be found with nothing more than the internet. Then, like the mall, that age old argument can be made again that if people are doing everything they need to online and 98% of all musicians start using one website that just starts to hold a sweeping monopoly for them (kind of like Google in the search engine business), then can’t one say that their entire target audience exists on that website and therefore they should be able to advertise to fulfill their ‘free press’, ‘free speech’ rights? Of course this kind of speculative debate could go on for many thousands of words, and is potentially useless until it starts to show itself more as a problem, but there’s some food for thought. Where, in a future internet-dominated world, is it okay to shamelessly advertise for free?

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The ART of Social Condensing

Lifestyle centers such as the Easton Town Center are interesting artifacts, in regards to their programmatic layout and location. Programmatically, centers such as these lend themselves to the lifestyle found in areas of high population density and more urban environments. Combining housing and grocery with big name retail and restaurant dinning provides a very stable shopping demographic and the perfect solution to creating the opportunity for customers to revisit the location. What I find interesting is that locations such as these have been successful in the suburban context. The density of the surrounding area has not forced this type of lifestyle on the occupants, such as living complexes in Manhattan or Hong Kong have, but they have served as a social condenser at both the internal residential scale and the outward communal town scale. They have also been beneficial for the town due to the fact that they drastically increase the value of surround property and keep the taxes for the aid of their own community. Lakewood Town Center is a perfect example of the positive effects that can come from development projects such as these and should be used as models for smaller cites of a similar problem.
It is also interesting to consider the point at which retail development can become detrimental to a society. Projects like Lakewood and Easton have proven to work at a fairly large scale, but mega malls such as Destiny seem to take away from the sense of community. Although the tax income of the community may increase with sales, there is appoint where retail of such large scale can hurt the small business.

How much is "value" worth?

It’s seems that value no longer has the same definition. Dictionary.com defines value first as “relative worth, merit, or importance,” the primary example being the value of a college education. Then the second definition is “monetary or material worth, as in commerce or trade.” The point that I’m trying to make is that value is no longer defined in the first example. It is about the cheapest. When Zukin writes about the honest brokers she says that “they place themselves on our side in the endless struggle for value” (Zukin 170) They may be attempting to do so, but true value never actually comes into play. It seems that true value only comes into play when the individual has the time or the money to make the distinction. As I said, people claim to want to know the value of goods but they don’t actually want to know it. They want what is quick, easy, and cheap. Dr. Phil, the popular talk show host, satisfies his audience because he is the quick, easy, and free answer to real therapy. But he’s not an actual doctor. Yes, of course, he is real. But how does his false advertising of therapy benefit the public who views his show. Dr. Phil.

Reality is unimportant to Americans so long as what they get is cheap and easy. When I worked for Best Buy, 90% of the people who came in were looking for the cheapest of whatever they needed. Even when it was a leisure item they typically spent the big bucks on the fancy TV because it has Sony or Pioneer slapped on it. But then, even when you tell them they are only going to get the “store quality” or “full quality” of the product if they buy all the appropriate cables and services, they don’t listen. Does anyone sign up for that? Of course not. They have the name brand they want, and they got it quick and easy and, yes it looks better than that old 20-inch Curtis Mathis, but it is not being used efficiently to it highest potential. Yet, the individual spent a good amount of money on a it and if they had only spent a little bit more, they would have obtained a huge increase in quality.
Zukin claims that the Honest Brokers “represent our deepest longing for value” (Zukin 173) But again, value is too often tossed around.

The problem is that this concept of value only worked when it was new. But when using this honest broker technique, deception crops up because people want to advertise according to this standard of honest brokers but in reality they are simply lying. In the new play, “Mr. Nice Guy” by Alex Coulombe, you find a pre-film commercial at the beginning of the play, and on the bottom of the screen there are little asterisks* citing that these quotes are not actual quotes or all the little catches to what’s being advertised. This may just be a play but it touches on reality.

Because so many companies have used the honest approach while really scamming the public, the consumer no longer has time for being convinced about the value. Now, most people just figure they will get screwed either way so why not go with the cheaper thing, so they don’t regret it as much. They don’t want to be scammed. In current advertising, companies have gone so far that they are calling each other out on this “fine print.” Companies are reading the fine print that the consumer may miss and bringing it to your attention to make their own product seem like the best option while also making their competition seem worse. But again, even those advertiser are hiding truths about their products.

The community mall article by Cohen and Borko is just reinforcing what was just stated. Americans want what is cheap, easy and quick and the lifestyle village provides that. It creates a microcosm of survival. Because the rise of suburbia has forced us into a situation in which you have to drive to Target and then find K-Mart and then go to Blockbuster and then drive all the way back home, Americans are wasting too much time, too much money for gas, and it was not as quick and easy as doing the same thing within walking distance, which is what the lifestyle village provides. Society has gotten so large and so spread out that the only way to deal with this many people is to begin breaking it up into villages. Villages have always existed, but because societies have become so dense in the past 100 years, we now are realizing that happiness lies in us reverting back to the idea of the village, where everything is close, small, convenient. The only problem is that economically we still live in a global market. Also “the narrative control of an individual’s experience is arguably central to commercial success.” (Lonsway 255) So companies don’t want to lose their hold on their consumers. But if we could look inward and have these villages exist as local, self-sufficient entities it would be a step in the right direction.

I'm getting it because he told me to ...

In Sharon Zurkin's article she goes into depth about consumerism and how it has changed our lifestyle(s). Consumer guides are something that has came up that changes and influences the way we think about certain products. We rely on these people or so called "honest brokers" to tell us about products, items, and basically everything else you can think of. What they think and recommend to us is what we will most likely get next time we need a product. When they say that a Nissan 350Z is best coupe outside under $30K, we will definitely consider the Nissan 350Z because we trust the consumer guides advice. However, one question always comes up when it comes to consumer goods and that is, "How trustworthy are they?"
Recently in the gaming industry there was a scandal about consumer guides and electronic gaming companies. It seemed that gaming companies have paid off these "honest brokers" that write reviews about these games in order to enhance the games image. Game companies that produce games such as "Kane & Lynch:Dead Men" were rumored to have paid off the people who write reviews and coaxed them to write a good review about the game. Doing this would convince the consumer to buy that game next time they are at a Best Buy or a Game Stop. However, the reviews about that certain game didn't match what the consumer's thought about it as the majority of people who own the game basically said it "sucked."

Consumer Dependency

In this consumption based society, consumers try and take advantage of every resource available to them. In the grocery stores and shopping malls, consumers are faced with never ending advertisements and endorsements for products that they should be buying instead of others. “Today, we depend on the advice of honest brokers who teach us how to choose the best automobiles, microwave ovens, and take-out pizzas” (Zukin 172). Consumers are influenced more and more by these endorsements by magazines, noted newspapers and various books, that they have completely put aside their own opinions on products for those of complete strangers.

The writers for The New York Times, Car and Driver, PC World and Good Housekeeping have taken over for our parents in pointing us in the right direction on how we should live our lives. They will tell us which products are the cheapest, which are the most effective at doing their job and even which products are the healthiest for us. Even though these honest brokers are speaking to a general audience have no actual idea of what we really do need, they speak to us as if they will always know what’s best for each of us. By creating a dependency on the brokers, we as consumers struggle to purchase something even as insignificant as a book or a bag of pretzels without knowing which brand is above the rest.

The Price for Pretty

Where to start…. If you think for a second it is easy to connect the dots and see the linear evolution from the Paris Arcades to Lifestyle Villages. What isn’t easy is to see where this evolution is heading. In order to see into the future a few critical questions must be asked first. Brian Lonsway addresses them but does not, nor should he have to, answer them. Where does this entertainment invasion stop and/or how much will it sacrifice program. In these designed hospitals, for example, a couple of problems have already arisen: including “problems of separately managing two clienteles” (Lonsway 288), and spending moneys on sand castles versus mental equipment. In other words, “wellness over illness” (Lonsway 295).

As architects, yes it might not be a surprise but should be a concern. And yes designing specifically for the blind, deaf and disable is essential for creating better spaces and yes shaking up the “idea” of a typology is not wrong, but where does it stop. Where does function get sacrificed for form? I think it is important for us architects to recognize this critical line and realize the consequences for crossing it.

On another equally important point of which I mentioned last week in class, is if everything is unique, what is it then unique too? What would it be like if there were ten Guggenheim's on 5^th Avenue? Move a little south on 5^th Avenue and you could see the result when the Seagram Building’s set back idea is duplicated and placed next to each other.

If I had to sum up my argument if would be that while conventional thinking is not the law, it is important to understand why it is the convention. Making things to look cool and unique might work at first but without substance it has no way of making it last. Wow I sound like my professor…interesting.

The Most Humble of Hostility, er, Hospitality...

I get really worried when I start to see entertainment forcing its way into places it may not be welcome. In Lonsway's chapter, there is a section that discusses the transformation of hospitals in UEDs, and my immediate reaction to such ideas is visceral and negative. I'm not saying there's not potential in hospitals that focus on 'maintaining health' instead of 'treating illness', and I'm all for positive attitudes, but the examples I've seen just seem far too geared at making money and making the hospital a "destination", which I believe far exceeds its programmatic nature.

I've been to Dartmouth Hitchcock and as far as that goes, I think its fine. A food court in a hospital is wonderful, especially with the reputations that hospital cafeterias so often have. That being said though, I find it hard to believe Sloane and Sloane's notion that it's becoming a popular hang-out spot for teens, even if it is the only fast food joint in the area. Every time I've been there, despite the 'mall architecture', the atmosphere is nothing like a mall due largely in part to the clientel; The fact that half the people are in wheel chairs or give off the distinct impression of illness is a large departure from the clientel typical malls see. I don't think there's anything wrong with these kind of varying demographics, but the distinction should be made between what the hospital food court 'feels like' and the typical kind.

It's places like Celebration Health that start to frighten me. I’m infinitely curious how a place like that deals with the terminally ill patients, especially when they so transparently are trying to run a business (people may say the same for some typical hospitals as well, but generally when you're in a hospital you know the primary goal is to heal and not to sell). Places like Celebration Health already admit to separating the paying health club enthusiast and the frightened hospital patient awaiting treatment. Is it all about image, or do they really care? Are the truly ill tucked away so no one is depressed by them? Are they told until the very end that they’re on the path to recovery and everything will be fine? Are visiting hours at odd times so that weeping family members won't intersect the pompous aristocrat who just came from a Thai Poultice Massage? As Lonsway says, it really seems to be maintaining the status quo. It's too bad, because I agree that “If all 'guests,' patients and spa members alike, were pampered equally – medically, therapeutically, and architecturally – then, perhaps, we could have a more hospitable hospital.” (290) The trick is how to do it.

I have to admit that going into the idea of a UED Hospital, I couldn't help but immediately think of a couple of family guy moments that explore an exaggerated (but who knows? It could happen...) potential of 'entertainment' hospitals. One was Peter doing stand up for terminally ill kids, where the difficulty kept arising that the kids wouldn't be able to relate to stand up humor since it inherently tends to be about trivialities in life, things the terminally ill tend not to fret about as much as the average comedy club enthusiast.


"I was the DMV the other day. Long lines at the DMV, but you’ll find that out when you’re old..er...(awkward pause)”
-Peter Griffin

The other is a doctor having trouble telling his patient that he has AIDS, so he thinks a singing Barbershop quartet will soften the blow. The point, I think, is that some issues need to be dealt with seriously and while in many cases humor makes things easier to deal with (politics from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert), turning something like telling you 'you're going to die' into a laughing matter is very thin ice to tread on. Bill Cosby's done stand up for terminally ill kids and I believe it went over very well. After coming to terms with a condition that you can't do anything about, it might make you feel better if your friends wrote you a song about it, I don't know. I believe it's all possible, but requires some pretty in depth exploration and a very specific mindset of what you're setting out to do.

YOU HAVE AIDS

The Space Between

Just as CityWalk attempts to recreate an urban feel without actually subjecting its dwellers to all the related risks of a metropolis, the ‘hidden persuaders’ in the marketing industry deceitfully expose consumers to various marketing schemes. Embedded within this “suburban strip mall…” (Lonsway), CityWalk attempts to advertise, but specifically entertain through its “…thematic cues – its experiential referents – from the city core” (Lonsway) by producing a themed destination outside the city, while at the same time reenacting it. Today, the addition of entertainment to any event or discipline “fills the eyeballs of millions seeking short-term, user-controlled, instantly-gratifying distractions (Wolf, 16, 30-48). It is quite possible that within these distractions, the notion of the anxious buyer is born. Constantly subject to many different forms of advertisement and marketing pressures, as consumers the quality of a purchase or buying experience remains the most influential aspect to shopping. As overwhelmed consumers continue to establish various interactions with advertisement via highly profiled retail venues, a whole new realm of entertainment is established. The appearance of the so-called ‘honest broker’ attempts to thrive off of a default space set between that of a marketer, and that of the consumer. However, in the midst of “earnestly trying to balance the objective qualities of money and materials against the subjective qualities of pleasure and style” (Zukin), ‘honest brokers’ in themselves seek to provide a new level of entertainment. As an extension from the idea of an ‘honest broker’, popular magazines, newspapers, and journals now hold specific sections designated to providing a consumers guide to the trendiest fashions and the best bargains. In the words of Zukin, “… a consumer guide is not just a guide to goods; it is a guide to the longing for clear, precise, and transparent standards in the public sphere” (Zukin). Even those who claim to provide ‘honest’ insight to the current market, seek to provide a level of entertainment by means of establishing a notion of what remains acceptable within the pubic sphere.

The Next Step

The pervasiveness of thematized environments has reached a dangerous level – a level where we no longer seem to notice (or worse, care) upon entering one. Obviously, varying degrees of departure from “the norm” will elicit differing degrees of wonder, bewilderment, or outright rejection, but we must consider whether the appearance of the manipulated narrative experience is due exclusively to the increased “commercial savvy” of the entertainment industry from the 19th to 20th century. Our culture is fast becoming (broad generalization coming) one of commercial expectation – one of themed one-upping which demands an increasingly themed environment for increasingly themed (branded) people (NikeTown, for the athlete). Whether this is for “maintaining wellness,” as in the themed hospital environment, or for a more discreet branding strategy, one thing seems for certain: now that we’ve come this far, we can’t go back. Such a distillation of the essence of the “here and now” is troubling, especially when we are called to design in it…if the process of design is a kind of innovation grounded in the present, then the idea of designing in a specific theme, utilizing specific tactics for specific ends, is a daunting one. My natural reaction is against this trend, but ultimately the role played by the architect on the world’s stage will more than likely be that of a facilitating agent.

truly living...

What else can be said about the Lifestyle Center? Like it or not, It is the new architectural type of our time. We are forced to witness its growth the very moment we visit the construction site around the Carousel Center. That’s right, even Syracuse is getting its own Lifestyle Center, as a means to revive the once thriving city. We can even see its insertion in Armory and Franklin Square. As architecture students, It is in our face and we are forced to uncover its somewhat vague architectural uniqueness. We can either resist it or embrace its innovation. The Andrew Cohen article is one of the first I have read that paints this New Urbanist phenomenon in a semi-positive light. As a means to revitalize an area we must over look the glamour of its billboard style architecture to highlight the benefits of it. If these Lifestyle Centers are planned correctly they can succeed, as Cohen showed us the through various Lifestyle Centers in California and Ohio. If this is the type of architectural intervention people are interested in, why not give it to them. Architecture is ultimately at the mercy of the publics demand. One problem I do see with it is its demographic bias. As Cohen puts it, the success of this new typology is ultimately determined by its location. Thus, we see these “malls” that only cater to a higher end demographic. I feel this is unfortunate and is masking a greater social issue. I feel these centers would benefit by introducing themselves to a diversity of the target public. Then again, maybe the Lifestyle Center is not for everybody, but the consumer should make that decision. I myself couldn’t imagine living above a Banana Republic or Crate and Barrel into my adulthood but there are others that marvel at its chic approach to urban living. If the target demographic is aging baby bloomers, like Cohen states, I find this type of project to be a hard sell. But if these candy-wrapped examples of architecture can tastefully revitalize the urban landscape I feel we all can benefit from it, even architects.

Too Much?

We as human beings are consumers and so our lifestyle. Developers have recognized it, thought about it, and have developed much so that it has become a way to profit from it; the production of the building typology “Lifestyle Village”. I also want to question if consuming is indeed the main drive behind the human psyche that has made these Lifestyle Villages a success. I feel as though that the Lifestyle Village works its appeal in another way. There are people who like the urban-esque feel of the shops and housing combo that you would find in a city, but feel that living in the city is too fast and or too busy of a lifestyle and more noisy and dangerous of a place. Lifestyle Villages eliminate those negatives. Their new type of a recreated, semi-suburban environments allow their inhabitants to have the best of both worlds; the implied urban environment with convenience, variety, safety, and less noise of suburbia, while also being apart of a new trend. Will this become the new way of living in America and will it catch on so well that it could fade the attraction of our idea of suburbia as well as become its replacement? Or, with the development of the “mega mall” and the UED becoming more populous, will people really want to live in that close of a proximity with more shopping other than that of necessity? In our consumer lifestyle, is there a point of where a limit is reached of a feeling of too much consumption?

the secret to success

In The Soul of the Company Store: Nike Town John Sherry depicts Nike Town as an entertainment destination that has grown into a cultural phenomenon. What makes Nike Town a spectacle in and of itself is its picture perfect integration of shopping and entertainment. NTC has successfully brought these two aspects together. The Nike Corporation has profitably branded its image and its Flagship store, in Chicago, has only highlighted itself as an innovator in the retail market. The author talks of branding as an extension of the company’s image. Whether its Nike, Harley Davidson, or Jeep these companies are popular today because they have loyal customers who support their products and buy into them because they are such status symbols within out society. Nike Town has shown us that branding as an advertising strategy is a profitable tool when it is use correctly. Nike can easily attribute its success to the quality of its products and to its successful advertising strategy. This marketing tool has added to the positive image of the brand and is why people are buying into it. Through innovative advertisement, Nike has branded an image that people want to be associated with. The integration of its products into a museum-like atmosphere is one example of how Nike has branded its image as a forward thinking company. Nike Town has pushed the limits of conventional retail architecture. In doing so they have attained the hard to capture cool factor. At the time of it’s opening, the architectural typology of Nike Town was so unusual for a retail giant. Yet, it is why it has become a successful typology among retailers today. Nike Town has made shopping fun! But it is not simply about selling their products it is more about selling their image. Like the author said himself, when looking at a Nike product in a traditional department store he will forever associate that product with the experience he had at Nike Town. The product he purchased is not what left him with a lasting impression of the brand, it was the experience associated with the product that made him a fan of the brand. Companies are reapplying some of Nike’s techniques and making it their own. Apple is one such company. Apple has recognized that image is ultimately everything and chasing cool is what attributes your success. Apples 5th avenue store in NYC is another example of this phenomenon. Because of visionaries like Nike, retailers are seeking the cool factor through the architecture of their stores. This not only benefits the retailer but is a bonus for the consumer as well.