WATERFORD INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: ARCHITECTURE DEPARTMENT MODULE: THESIS LITERATURE REVIEW A5: RESEARCH PROJECT HOW CAN SHOPPING CENTRES ENHANCE CONNECTIVITY AND SOCIABILITY IN OUR TOWNS AND CITIES? ALEX KOSTIC, FINTAN DUFFY, DAVID SMYTH. 28 OCT 2015 1.0 INTRODUCTION Over the past sixty years, retail environments have been subject to an intense and ongoing transformation, one which is distinguishable in the advent of large-scale out-of-town shopping complexes and new specialised shopping centres in our town and city centres. Though the shopping centre itself is a relatively new phenomenon the activity of trade can be traced to the Stone Age and possibly beyond where the exchange of obsidian and flint was underway in Catalhoyuk, a Neolithic settlement in southern Anatolia Turkey 7500 – 5000 BC. Current shopping retail typologies haven’t had the ability to evolve in synchronicity with the flux of our urban centres, instead they were construed from the spread of the suburbs, the wish for every household to possess a car and the pervading consumer fetish which has inserted itself into the consciousness of westernised and emerging economies. Ironically the inventor of the shopping centre or (mall) was an Austrian Victor Gruen, who wished to recapture the medieval Market squares of Europe and the Arcades of Paris within an enclosed space, in an attempt to bring a sense of community and belonging to the ubiquitous suburbs of the American city. The Mall has been seen