| Summary: | 碩士 === 東海大學 === 建築學系 === 92 === The development of shopping spaces in Taiwan into multiple service and entertainment providers in recent years is turning their roles into semi-public spaces and acts to respond to civilians’ needs for public activities in urban surroundings. The aim of this study is to investigate how shopping spaces are shaped as semi-public spaces and its influence to the management of these shopping spaces, to shopping activities, and to the city environment as a whole. We investigated the performance and quality of spatial design in 7 shopping spaces in Taichung city. Related researches indicate that the management of shopping spaces into semi-public spaces comes from the pursuit of ideal shopping experiences — freedom and chance in socializing in such an open environment. Though established for commercial motivation, this kind of semi-public shopping spaces has formed a shared experience among consumers in urban environment.
In Taichung City, department stores and shopping centers are very similar in management. So, the distinctive theme space management has become an important strategy to run shopping spaces. These theme spaces differentiated are not only by characteristics of shopping experience but also by other non-commercial purposes, like public using. In addition, their unique semi-public properties relate to the style the shopping spaces intend to offer. Among them, the Eslite bookstore in Chungyo department store, the culture hall of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store, and the square of Tiger City Shopping Center are good examples to show the importance of semi-public management in shopping spaces.
The Eslite bookstore in Chungyo department store is designed to provide a consumer-friendly and library-like atmosphere. This is unique in attracting attention, but this also impacts the coordination of the bookstore with any other festival events and activities of the main department store. The culture hall of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store provides art and cultural exhibitions, which, in fact, compensates the lack of cultural spaces in this city. The Tiger City Square successfully provides an open environment for multiple activities, furthermore it’s also a space of advertisement. All three cases show that publicly designed spaces are means of gaining customer satisfaction during their shopping.
Therefore, the results of this study are as follows. From the commercial point of view, the attraction and power of publicly designed spaces to cater for people should get more attention. As shopping is concerned, the activity is beyond mere consumption of daily goods but an experience of being entertained. These publicly designed shopping spaces compensate the lack of urban public spaces and establish a shared consumer experience and time-space frame. Though these semi-public commercial spaces offer limited right of using and selective public properties with motives and effects being controversial, the trend of semi-public management of shopping spaces may be an opportunity for urban development, if regulated properly.
Keywords: Department store, Shopping center, Taichung city, Semi-public, Shopping experience
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