The loss of the structural relationship with the territory and its exponential occupation, unregulated and unrestrained, breeds a fractured landscape, where the silos of commerce stand as isolated outposts that interact only along infrastructure corridors. The planning experiment presented here takes the case of the ‘Il Globo’ shopping centre, between the Lombard municipalities of Busnago and Cornate, as a pretext for studying the strategies that can encourage a rethink of the mall as a key element proffering new and notable centralities and a landmark in the contemporary scene. An exercise to hybridise its current configuration leads to a principle that can be applied and replicated to the recognisable type that is the shopping centre, to advance an alternative form of land use.
Keywords: Hybridisation; inclusion; designation