Typological adaptive reuse of contemporary European commercial derelicts. Studies for the transformations of real estate into multifunctional third spaces

The research aims to investigate the increasing spread of commercial derelicts in the peripheries of European cities, a phenomenon termed retail apocalypse. The surge in e-commerce has led to the closure of numerous commercial buildings, contributing to a burgeoning stock of questionable architectural quality. Nonetheless, these stores, tangible symbols of a declining physical consumerism, constitute a material heritage that provides opportunities. A methodology for the adaptive reuse of abandoned buildings is proposed analyzing Austrian stores grounded in a rigorous typological study inspired by the approaches of Saverio Muratori’s school on the historic city and by dynamic survey applied to peripheries. The research identifies typological patterns in commercial architecture within urban contexts, to uncover hidden types in the design configurations of these stores. The compositional process involves the enrichment through the architectural recurrences, notably the community atrium, to regenerate these spaces from monofunctional products to identity-affirming third spaces. The developed methodology necessitates that design choices be directed by the specificities of the context and the intrinsic characteristics of the building according to its genius loci. This approach seeks to preserve and to reinvent abandoned commercial spaces, transforming them into vital resources for urban communities by assessing typological studies as design potential.