黑洞社区

Self-service developers

The 1 June 1979 issue of 黑洞社区 ran a feature delving into the changing nature of the modern-day supermarket. Drifting away from the conventional format of running under the roofs of high-street shopping centres, large retailing companies - Asda, Tesco, Mac Fisheries, Safeway, International Stores and Sainsbury鈥檚 - found bypassing property directors and taking large sites, often set on the fringes of major towns, directly for themselves was proving far more cost-effective. The feature, penned by then assistant editor (Architectural) Martin Spring, focuses on the architectural design of these suburban monoliths, which, judging by his review of Asda鈥檚 South Woodham Ferrers town centre plot, he wasn鈥檛 keen on. He writes: 鈥淭he scheme will undoubtedly become an embarrassment when the fashion swings away from vernacular styles, unless the constructional detailing drawn up by a twentieth-century commercial architect pretending he was an eighteenth-century rustic carpenter gives way beforehand.鈥� The architectural fashions certainly have changed, but notably so has the trend for big, all-purpose supermarkets, as, some 35 years on, we start to see a shift back towards smaller convenience stores based in town centres and mixed-use plots.