ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN FACTORS INFLUENCING PEDESTRIAN FLOW IN COMMUNITY MALLS: A CASE STUDY OF THONG LO

Abstract

During the past decade, community malls are in the fastest growing category of Bangkok’s retail industry. This growth was due to their building layouts and types of tenants which match urban lifestyles; along with Bangkok zoning restrictions for large shopping centers in residential areas. Today, the number of community malls with three or more floors (mid-rise community malls) is growing, especially in Thong Lo. This is because of the increasing land prices, where investments in community malls with one-two floors are no longer cost-effective. However, mid-rise community malls commonly have the issue of low pedestrian flows on the upper floors, which leads to lower chances of sales for the tenants. Accordingly, adjustments of building layouts to encourage customers to visit the upper floors are necessary for survivals of the community malls. This research aims to provide architectural design factors influencing pedestrian flows in community malls. For the research method, frameworks and theories are studied from literature reviews and interviews with architects and developers to form a research methodology for case studies in Thong Lo. Four methods for data collections are formed from three hypotheses. The first and the second hypotheses are the anchor tenants can draw customers to the upper floors, and the effortlessness in moving between floors can distribute pedestrian flows to the upper floors. The data of tenant placements, tenant mix, and pedestrian patterns are collected for these parts. The third hypothesis is visual accesses from entrances can encourage the customers to the upper floors. Here, the panoramic photograph is captured from each entrance and visibility graphs are generated from the program called DepthmapX (UCL, 2017). After these data are analyzed, it is found that apart from the anchor tenants, tenants such as learning centers and fitness centers can also encourage the flow of the customers. For the effortlessness, the combinations of vertical paths in most community malls are stairs and elevators. These vertical paths should be located near both main entrances and entrance from parking areas. The visual accesses in the community malls mostly rely on the relationships between atria, vertical distances between floors, and widths of corridors. When these design criteria are implemented to the proposed community mall, the result of the visibility graph shows that the upper floors are easier for the customers to access when compares with the case studies. All in all, this research is anticipated to provide design suggestions based on customers’ behaviors.