Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow stretches 1.5 miles (2.5km) from the city’s central core to Kelvingrove in the west. It is criss-crossed by other streets, the names of which evoke flowers, gemstones, even Hope itself. In recent years feelings of the latter have been in short supply.

The street’s central section–city centre to Charing X–was once a pathway through a willow grove, better days perhaps, but considering shockwaves from the global financial crisis, the pandemic, the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and most significantly, diversification of shopping and recreational choices, for a street predicated on both, it is astonishing that its urban expression persists at all. Empty shop units and silent bars sit in clusters or monumental isolation, circa 80% of the buildings which, last century, housed some of the areas celebrated department stores are emptied.

There is an understandable nostalgia for landmark retail, and department stores especially. They frequently occupy prominent sites within provincial cities, providing legibility and expression of place, but it is useful to remember that, once upon a time, they might have absorbed the haberdasher, the milliner, and the perfumier, just as the supermarket consumed the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. Sentimentality cannot insulate city centres from the impact of seismic shifts in seller and customer attitudes.

Landscapes of long-term vacancy and abundant brownfield offer opportunities for deep exploration. From ‘The Dutch Atlas of Vacancy’ (RAAAF, 2010) to Lacaton and Vassals ‘never demolish’ provocation, the latent capacity of empty and at-risk buildings is obvious. (Macklin)

Beginning with an initial study of Sauchiehall Street, an emblematic retail thoroughfare, this paper seeks to establish fresh perspectives on vacancy and sustainable development, from the inside out, and contribute multi-disciplinary perspectives to emerging debates and actions in this space between vacancy and the ruin (O'Callaghan, Di Feliciantonio).

S H O PP I N G is the title of a cluster of practice-led, or practice conscious, research activities undertaken by a group primarily interested in the value of interior space, its recent historical status, current significance and future potential. Written in this way, with a capitalised and mainly double-spaced letter sequence, it is intended to be read, or sung by the inner voice, to the tune of The Pet Shop Boys 1987 recording of the same name. It is also struck-through, an embellishment in acknowledgement of the impact that recent seismic external forces have had, and will continue to have, on traditional retail activity in urban centres alongside their interdependent neighbours in the fields of hospitality and entertainment. This negating line would ideally switch on and off, or flicker in the way that neon signs sometimes do.