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Commercial

Largest retail complex in north Shanghai revealed

The Shanghai Jiuguang Center sits within a bustling neighbourhood, merging an advanced commercial ecosystem with a customer-friendly destination

by Hannah Holt 21 June 2022 Urban design

Nihon Sekkei worked in collaboration with UNStudio. Nihon Sekkei was asked to develop the outer shell of the retail centre and UNStudio was responsible for fleshing out the mall as a placemaking destination for customers and the larger community. This included the design of the inner courtyard and its facades, the full interior of the mall and a public rooftop terrace.

Looking at the numerous ways users could engage with the various spaces and creating curated shopping experiences for different users informed the design of the building. This resulted in creating a synergy between the architectural and interior design, the building scale and the human scale, the geometry and materials and the inside-outside relationship.

The design includes a central courtyard and landscape area that sits at the heart of the mall. This courtyard not only serves as an event space for the mall itself, but also provides a destination for the wider community. It contains a sunken area with integrated seating, planting and lighting that is also designed to be used for events. As such, the courtyard becomes a destination both during the day and in the evenings.

The strong relationship between the exterior and interior continues in the organisation of three internal voids which are located on the perimeter of the courtyard. Long bands of windows along the courtyard enable glimpses to the interior spaces, while light enters the void spaces through the facade, creating vertical spaces flooded with daylight.

Each void has its own distinct identity and materialisation, based on three different themes that vertically link the shopping experience and help to orient users within the expansive retail areas.

The ‘urban playground’ themed void, with its bright a colourful material scheme, expresses the bustle of the city outside.

For the second void, with the theme ‘urban oasis’, the materialisation sets out to reconnect with nature, using warm colour tones and brass articulations throughout.

The third void, which is themed as an ‘urban catwalk’, describes a nighttime atmosphere that is reflected in the dark, glossy materials used.

The three voids anchor the public circulation areas and create a vertical space across the different retail levels. They further supply the circulation spaces with daylight, while providing glimpses to the courtyard outside.

The ceiling design integrates a pattern that acts as a wayfinding element, pointing to common areas such as restrooms, elevators and the escalators located next to the voids.

The retail boulevard, along with the three themed voids, form an interior public space that creates a constant flow of people, which adds to the overall orientation and curated experience of the building.


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