Assignment 6: Wright

I visited Perimeter Mall in Dunwoody late in the afternoon today. It was sunny and warm outside, but the mall was quite crowded. Given that it is spring break week in most of the public schools, there seemed to be a noticeable absence of teens. The mall guests were primarily families, and there did not seem to be an abundance of single shoppers. The demographic makeup crossed a wide array, particularly among races and ethnic groups: white, black, Asian, Indian, Hispanic, Jewish. It appeared to be more of a reflection of the local community makeup than a result of product types and stores in the mall.

The current mall mix appeals more to the achievers and emulators, based on Crawford's analysis, although this has changed in the last decade. In fact, Perimeter Mall was anchored by JC Penney until 2002, but now, its anchors are Macy's, Dillard's, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale's. The first photo above shows the outside of the mall's front. Immediately to the left in the forefont is the newer front of Macy's, the middle of the picture shows the older entrance to Macy's, and to the right is the new exterior free-standing restaurant and store area (showing Maggiano's). To the right is the parking lot and valet area. In the rear, there is a parking deck with bridge access to Macy's and Nordstrom. The interior layout is the traditional barbell configuration facing Ashford-Dunwoody Road with the food court located in the center and Macy's and Dillard's as the anchors. Passing through the food court leads shoppers through a T to the back anchor, Bloomingdale's. Just before reaching that store, a new ell has been added and terminates in the fourth anchor, Nordstrom. Other than inside the anchor stores, the only escaltors are situated in the food court and outside of Bloomingdale's. Stairs are located outside the other anchors. There is no major entertainment venues such as a movie theater in this mall.

The second photo above shows the rear ell leading to Nordstrom. That is the only area in the mall which has a water feature. The amount of plants in this wing are much more prevalent that elsewhere in the mall. While there are skylights in the other wings, they are not as bright as the area in Photo 2. Photo 3 shows the head of the food court with small picnic-styled wrought iron tables. Visible are some of the various shoppers in this most crowded area of the mall.

Photo 4 shows several other elements that Crawford addressed in her article. There are the typical seating areas in the middle of the main halls. While not located in alcoves of secluded spaces, their layout creates little islands of denlike space amidst the pedestrian flow all around. They were sparsely filled today, but other times they are full of napping seniors or youth or nursing mothers. Also visible in this picture are two types of signs in the mall. Adjacent to a small temporary frame with a poster advertising a new store's grand opening is the more common video sign. Strangely, with its scrolling banner of ads and audio speaker at the bottom, it creates appreciable visual and auditory noise right next to the island of rest in the adjacent sitting area. Of course, that is exactly the goal that developers and mall organizers create in their layouts according to Crawford.

What surpised me about Perimeter is that, despite the number of times I have shopped there, I never really noticed how the mall "worked." There are different types of flooring from carpet to stone, different lighting based on the age of construction, and people congregate around the food court because of its central location and service as an artery. Oddly, there does not seem to be much congregation despite tables and chairs outside of the anchors. Generally, the areas were open and seemed to be underused.