The Architecture of Retail: Techniques of Urban Regeneration

The places and architectures of commerce have always played a central role in the development of cities. The genesis of the city is, in fact, more closely linked to trade exchanges than to the need for military defense. Commerce, along with civic and religious life, gave rise to places which represent one of the most significant inventions of humanity's creativity: squares, places for socialization, sharing information, experiences, and emotions. Retail Network plays a key-role in our cities in terms of social aspects, safety, urban economy. Nowadays this is especially true in Urban Regeneration projects. Understood the severe crisis the stores are currently facing, the goal is to define organic and structural strategies to revitalize the retail together with the public realm. The topic involves both the urban scale and the architectural scale. The paper talks about revitalization strategies typical of degraded suburban contexts with special reference to mall-retrofit, as well as projects for the Historic Centers. Finally, the article introduces the example of an Urban Retail Revitalization Plan for a medium-sized city.