shopping mall

A conversation about the geometry of nowhere

Mathieu Helie — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:42:18 +0000

In response to my previous article, Bruce Liedstrand of Community Design Strategies in Paris writes,

I read with interest your essay on The Geometry of Nowhere because I divide my time between Paris and Silicon Valley (the site of your Cupertino Target store example). After re-reading the essay, I am puzzled. I hear your frustration with narrow sidewalks, but I am lost in understanding your concept of “place”.

The Marketplace City

Mathieu Helie — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:56:05 +0000

Christmas break brought me back to Montreal visiting family, and family took me out to the post-holiday sales in the constellation of big-box stores along Montreal's southern beltway, highway 30. Having all but grown up in the area, I've been witness to the transformations that the commercial space along the highway has experienced. There are some hard lessons to learn from the silly congestion of Christmas shopping and the impact of random growth in the context of the severely zoned outer suburbs.

A measure of urban connection

Mathieu Helie — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 20:58:23 +0000

What does it mean for a city to be connected? And is there quality resulting from this property? Let's define the basic node of a city as a doorway. (Not necessarily a building. A single building can have many doorways to separate spaces.) A connection is the distance from this doorway to the next node, that is to say the next doorway. A well connected city is a city where the distance from doorway to doorway is minimized, since everything will be easily accessible from the public space.