A Second Chance For Malls Everywhere

Have you ever seen a post-apocalypse movie where the scenery is usually abandoned cities, run down homes, empty airports, and silent malls?  Have you ever watched and wondered what  actually happens to a building when it becomes abandoned? 

Usually they are torn down and condemned but what if we were able to recycle buildings like we do with plastic bottles, turn something old and used into something new and useful.  

The new skylight in what was the Highland Mall 

  According to Ellen Dunham-Jones, an architect and professor at Georgia Tech,there are about 

1,2000 abandoned malls around the United States Most of these malls have become abandoned due to the rapid building a malls in the 20th century, when the malls were seen as dollar signs, but only became a problem in over retailing the public. Now the old malls are become new and improved. Many architects like, Ellen , are using old malls and turning them into new functioning institutions like schools, churches, and medical centers.  Malls are becoming more vacant because of the incline of online shoppers. With lots of space to build upon, changes are being made for the better, allowing these once populated shopping centers to become something that is helpful to the community.

photo credit: Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects