Urban Retail Placemaking

This course seeks to introduce students to the thinking and techniques required to locate and design physical retail experiences that create and sustain desirability for the retailer with its customers and the total marketplace. Participants will experience first-hand the impact retailers and the socio-cultural environment have on each other in space and over time. They will learn about retailer identity- as well as community placemaking strategies and how the desire to create attractive offerings by both sides can clash or synergize. Based on this understanding and their own fieldwork, students will develop a marketplace strategy for a retail client aimed at generating awareness and appeal for their business among both, target customers and local stakeholders.