The Shift From Souqs to Malls a Socio-Spatial Analysis in Doha and Jeddah

People are drifting away from traditional markets into contemporary malls due to many factors including the changes of lifestyle and routines. The presence of online shopping is one of the main reasons that affect the shopping routine. It offers a wide range of products with competing prices and qualities in addition to a delivery system and that made shopping from home more convenient. Also, shopping malls have different brands and each brand has a website that presents all the products and prices. One can surf the website and head to the mall to get the product they like immediately. Traditional souqs do not offer such services. Also, modern shopping malls offer a more female friendly environment in terms of safety and security. The narrow alley of traditional souq might leave the woman uncomfortable to shop in such environment. Finally, the more money a shopping environment generates, the more popular important it becomes for the city government. Thus, building more malls generates more money and help support the city’s economy. From this perspective, this thesis studies the physical and socio-spatial characteristics of traditional and modern commercial spaces by examining the users’ satisfaction with each commercial environment. This thesis employs the post occupancy evaluation method for field data collection while the literature is based on books, journal, websites, and oral history. Elderlies who lived in the old markets are interviewed to draw an image of the past especially when there is a lack of documented proofs of the lifestyle at that period. For the markets assessment, a sample of 25 participants of each case study answers a questionnaire to evaluate their satisfaction with the commercial space. The data then are inserted into a program to calculate them and get the final results. Participants in Doha are generally satisfied with the traditional souq (Souq Waqif) and the modern mall (Landmark mall). On the other hand, Jeddah participants are pleased with the contemporary mall (Mall of Arabia) but they are dissatisfied with the traditional concept market (Souq Al Juma’a). However, different factors might affect the judgment of each sample. The thesis starts with literature review about historical commercial spaces and modern shopping centers with case studies of each type. Then, it represents the main case studies in Doha and Jeddah. The thesis illustrates the assessment system employed in studying the users’ satisfaction with two traditional markets and two contemporary malls in Jeddah and Doha.