The intent is to design a retail mall that will be able to string together the different parts of the Qplex development and inviting enough to serve as a social platform for the surrounding residential communities. The design process was focused on developing strategies to bring together ideas and philosophies associated with largely contrasting building typologies.
The architecture of Building 12 is driven by ideas of social and commercial sustainability. The familiar image of the shopping mall as we know it is fast becoming less relevant with shifting expectations fueled by new shopping habits, technological adoption and socializing trends. Building 12 represents an interpretation of these concerns based on the specific opportunities and challenges of this locality.
In a city that places an emphasis on urban greening, the design team utilized the idea of a public park as the starting premise because of its natural platform as a community node. A park also offers an opportunity to project a powerful visual image on an urban scale, while simultaneously encouraging users to discover their individual and unique relationships with it.
Activity spaces are weaved into Building 12 across multiple levels. Public plazas and roof gardens are carefully curated based on environmental conditions, spatial qualities and locations to maximize realistic usability.
Timbered and turfed roofs blend into one another, creating multiple entries into the mall across various “ground levels”. This allows Building 12 to become a rich canvas of overlapping thresholds where the mall IS the park and the park IS the mall.
With the accelerated pace of architecture projects today, it is easy to be pulled into the rabbit hole of statistics, efficiencies and a two-dimensional pursuit of energy sustainability as the single solution for architectural design. This often results in a diminished emphasis on human and social sustainability issues. The design of Building 12 maintains a deep regard for the user community at its core, giving it a higher chance of successfully generating functional longevity and commercial adaptability over its lifetime.
It is the hope that Building 12 will be able to weave together contending commercial, social and communal concerns into a mutually enabling environment.
