Shopping malls have influenced more places in our economic and social life and have also taken the place of traditional markets. Shopping malls are now performing dual purposes, a place to shop and recreation. Shoppers spend a substantial time in shopping malls because they host a lot of stores and activities that attract consumers’ attention and offer a lot of assistances. In the past, the shopping activity took place in open public spaces with other urban and public functions and happenings of the city, like ancient Greek Agora or Roman Forum. After centuries, the enclosed shopping mall separated urbanity and shopping activity from each other. These fully-enclosed and environmentally controlled consumption spaces redefined the urban fabric to put on a city image in an enclosed space. A street-like in an enclosed space was created for daily purchase of peoples need for example Mall of America. Today, urban fabric and shopping mall incorporation is becoming more important. The gap in the study is to show the negligence of Nigerian researchers to write on relationship of open space and sustainable design for shopping malls that is the rising trends in the world. So, the existing shopping malls are opening, take part with urban fabric and continually updating themselves to compete with the emerging shopping places. This recent regeneration trend is called ‘De-malling’ in the world. Every shopping mall has different reasons for the architectural features incorporated, which can be functional, managerial or structural, so, description of architectural features in shopping mall would be necessary for each shopping mall. This study examined ‘main principles and criteria for shopping mall concepts’ in order to put forward the specific functions and locations for different units that is incorporated in Oluwole urban shopping mall. The research method in this study is personal observation, archival research combination supported by constructive interpretative paradigm.

Keywords : Shopping, Shopping Mall, Urbanity, Urban Public Space, Features.