Assessing the Publicness of Contemporary Shopping Centre,Case Study: City Center Complex of Isfahan

In recent decades, Due to the impacts of changes taking place since 1970s as well as economic issues and globalization, the production of public spaces, usage, characteristic, forces and factors affecting the formation of urban public spaces have changed. The restricted social welfare policies, a general decrease in state power and the rise of private-public partnership are some of the essential political implications of the globalization process. Nowadays Economy along with technology has rattled of its strength in terms of architecture and design of the new spaces. As a result, privatized public and uniform spaces are constructed in cities with aim of economic profitability and create a safe and attractive environment for investors. Modern shopping centers and shopping malls are manifestation of the new spaces that are formed with focusing on ideology of global consumption. Recently they have been at the center of a controversy regarding public and private space. In viewpoints of some experts, these spaces due to some factors such as providing the same service and experience in usage of space and discouraging of the presence of disadvantaged people are not recognized as a public space. Furthermore they are normally privately owned, therefore, their access to open spaces, shopping and other facilities within it becomes the prerogative of the mall operators. Hence, they cannot serve as civil or public space. On the other hand, some experts argue that shopping malls are valuable public space for people, teenager in particular, because it is a place where they can shop and/or socialize. This challenge and controversy intensify the importance of assessing the definition of contemporary shopping center as a public space because they are substitution of traditional public spaces and shopping (markets) which are recognized as the most important and successful public spaces in the past and now their past role and identity have lost. The purpose of this study is to measure publicness of shopping centers as a new alternative of former public space. To this end, by using the descriptive-analytic study after a literature review about public space, consider publicness as a multi-dimensional concept and identify different dimensions of it based on an academic discourse. At the end a Star model has chosen as a comprehensive model for assessing publicness. As each dimension in star model includes a broad concept, to translate the Star Model into a tool for synthesizing and quantifying a place’s ‘publicness’, a set of indicators for each dimension was developed. This Model consist of five dimensions (ownership, control, civility, configuration and Animation). Base on definitions Ownership refers to a place’s legal status and the second and third dimensions, control and civility, are the managerial dimensions of publicness. The control dimension of publicness refers to the different measures taken to limit the individual freedom and the political manifestations of the members of a certain social group, when they are present in a public place. It refers both to measures taken as part of the management of public places and to methods imbedded in the design of public place. Civility describes how a public place is managed and maintained and involves the cultivation of a positive and welcoming ambience. The fourth and fifth dimensions—physical configuration and animation—are two design-oriented dimensions of publicness. Distinction can be made between a place’s macro-design—its relationship with its hinterland, including the routes into it and its connections with its surroundings place)—and its micro-design—the design of the place itself (i.e. within-the-place). Based on these dimensions, definition of ideal public space as a standard of publicness is publicly owned by democratically elected bodies, well connected in the surrounding urban grid and designed according to principles that foster activity and social interaction, used by a large and diverse public in a variety of ways, controlled in a non-oppressive manner and characterized by an inviting and tidy atmosphere (Varna and tiesdell, 2010). According to this definition, publicness in a contemporary shopping center in Isfahan as a case study, that is called Isfahan City Center, was surveyed. It is a large commercial and entertainment complex in Isfahan, Iran and one of the largest shopping malls containing a museum in the world. It is located near the city of Isfahan and the towns of Sepahan Shahr and Baharestan.
The results showed that the average publicness in the City Centre complex is low. The reasons can found in management approaches in the complex, its over-control approaches and location.
As regard to the restricted public use and the increased social exclusion of some groups, shopping centers cannot be regarded as public spaces. Public use depends on the location of shopping centers which means that especially shopping centers within suburban areas mostly serve their nearer neighborhoods rather than having the opportunity for the use of different groups from whole areas of the city as city centers provide