Broadway Malyan‘s largest retail project in China opens its doors

The Lefo Mall Shopping Centre has opened its doors to the public in Suzhou, in Jiangsu Province Eastern China, with the scheme being the largest retail project to be built to a design by global architecture, urbanism and design practice Broadway Malyan in China to date.

courtesy Broadway Malyan

The design for the 65,000 square metre destination mall, located at the heart of Suzhou's new Wuzhong Central Business District, was delivered for client Suzhou Zhongrun Real Estate Ltd, part of Zhongrun Resources Investment Corporation. It sets a new benchmark for commercial development in the region and targets young and design-conscious customers.

courtesy Broadway Malyan

The practice delivered a wide range of services, from concept design through to site services and including interior and landscape architecture and branding / environmental graphics design.

courtesy Broadway Malyan

The design was led by the practice's Shanghai-based team, drawing on the world-class retail and retail branding expertise of its teams in Europe and Singapore.

The design takes inspiration form the city's canals, bridges and gardens with Suzhou known as the 'Venice of the East'. Natural elements such as water shape the design, with the feeling of ripples and pools flowing through the space and the inclusion of curved balustrade details.

Primary void spaces are designed with organic forms to soften and bring identity to key spaces. Bridges and pools have been designed within the floorscape to create seating areas, while bespoke furniture has been constructed from natural local materials. The landscape design reinforces the concept by using the existing canal edge and including new water features, land bridges, bench seating and planting areas.

courtesy Broadway Malyan

The successful delivery of the scheme is testament to our world-class and integrated team of diverse architectural, interior, public realm, landscaping and branding design experts working in close partnership with the client, with the resultant mall reflecting both international design best practice and the natural beauty of Suzhou.

Director Jeremy Salmon

The wide scope of the practice's brief reflects an increasing trend in the procurement of design services in China in the support of brand-led retail design, resulting in a consistent design narrative from concept to completion.

courtesy Broadway Malyan

Suzhou is a city of 2.4 million people, located adjacent to the Shanghai Municipality on the old Imperial Canal and lower Yangtze River. Recognised for its rich past and ancient cultural treasures, the city has a 2,500 year history of canals, bridges, gardens and beautiful natural scenery.

courtesy Broadway Malyan

Over the past year the practice has reported a number of high-profile project successes in China including the completion of the design for the Kanas Lake Performance Theatre, opening of the La Nova shopping centre (the first major international shopping centre of its kind in Hunan Province), as well as new appointments to design a global R&D centre and complete a strategic planning review of the Minhang District in the heart of Shanghai.

Located in Valle de Bravo lake in Mexico, the project is located on a steep slope, and with boundaries irregular in its geometry.

Bordered by a brook of clear water and by the lake itself, at one very narrow end there is a bridge that provides the only access to the site; the remaining sides are limited by the vegetation of neighbouring constructions and by thick forest.

courtesy CHK Arquitectura, photo by Yoshihiro Koitani

Though blessed with beautiful views to the lake and to the brook, the site does not offer up these sights at first glance; they can only be seen from different levels of the terrain and through the surrounding forest. It is therefore necessary to locate the different functions of the programme in the more or less privileged zones, according to their importance.

courtesy CHK Arquitectura, photo by Yoshihiro Koitani

The programme is designed to provide the best views for the public spaces in a horizontal arrangement, and for the private quarters in a vertical disposition.

courtesy CHK Arquitectura, photo by Yoshihiro Koitani

The plastic expression of these volumes, how they are built, and the circulation among them are the theme through which the project expresses itself.

courtesy CHK Arquitectura, photo by Yoshihiro Koitani

The cuts and stalls on the terrain are resolved using walls of stone from the area. Other lighter elements are built from poured concrete or brick to divide spaces, and glass panelling is placed where the views so require. The flooring is a lightened concrete system over steel and wooden beams.

courtesy CHK Arquitectura, photo by Yoshihiro Koitani

The relation of the different spaces to the sometimes very massive terrain, as well as the views they provide (seeking transparency most of the time), give the project a complex interplay of weight and levity.

+ Project facts

MZ House
Valle de Bravo, Estado de Mexico, Mexico.

Designed in: 2009
Built in: 2010 to February 2012
Architect: Eduardo Hernandez Ch.
Interior Design: Eduardo Hernandez Ch.
Decoration: Gloria Cortina
Design team: Adrian Peña R., Ivan Caballero H., Cristian Olguin M.
Structural Engineering: Arturo Hernandez Toriz
Landscape Architecture: Kees Van Rooij
Contractor: Mexvisa / Juan Calderon. P. Olvera.
Photography: Yoshihiro Koitani
Renders: Daniel Ceceña
Constructed area: 780m²

+ All images and drawings courtesy CHK Arquitectura

courtesy Ubica

D23 is a 7 meter lenght tender type boat designed and produced in Barcelona by Ubica designers team for a new motor boats brand, ideal for day trips and coastal sailing, as well as a tender for mega yachts or water taxi for resorts, channels and harbor areas of touristic interest.

The D23 simple lines and angular shapes make it an elegant boat, unlike most boats, especially of this length. It has been designed especially considering the ergonomics aspects to provide maximum comfort for both the steering and their occupants. The boat performs excellently sailing and even provides comfort above the ordinary sailing at over 30 knots with great stability and grip.

courtesy Ubica

Its most remarkable innovation aspect is the concept of the engine location. The result is the use of a conventional outboard motor, with a power between the 115HP and 175HP, which that thanks to a wise combination of volumes and proportions of the boat it's completely hidden. That's how it offers the advantages of an outboard motor with the aesthetic result of an inboard engine and a better use of the space on deck. Moreover, the cover, which also has strategic holes for the engine ventilation, has the advantage of acting as a sound enclosure reducing the noise that the engine generates.

courtesy Ubica

Hull and deck are fiberglass and polyester resin made. Deck finished in teak and details in carbon fiber.

It's designed for up to 6 people and offers various seating and deck configuration possibilities. There're a lot of optional pieces to adapt the D23 to each customer’s preferences so it can be perfectly adapted to each needs and type of navigation. The D23 can have the bow closed with a sundeck or completely clear; it can also come with a low windshield as a baffle or a raised one to provide more protection and you can even opt for a hard top or a removable bimini perfect for those hot summer days.

courtesy Ubica

The aft area, which also allows different adaptations, has wide aisles and easy access through the bathing semi-platforms.

The boat include also a fenders kit designed with a special shape which allows 2 positions, outside to make the fender function and inside to be used like a cushion to be stand up on the boat during the trip.

The wide range of colors to choose for the hull and cushions and the great combination of elements to equip the D23 makes that there are no two D23 alike and can be adapted to each person’s preferences.

+ All images courtesy Ubica

 INNOCAD Architektur designed the XAL Competence Center.

Adaptation and renovation of an existing factory building as a competence center (office structure and laboratories) in terms of function, technical infrastructure, and thermal insulation for XAL, one of the leading companies in the building lighting, LED and light design sector.

courtesy INNOCAD Architektur, photo by Paul Ott

As the most innovative brand in building lighting, LED and light design, XAL not only aims to develop extraordinary products, but also to create a powerful identity by designing the entire setting and to express this identity in XALcc's overall concept.

PLANNING

By opening the new XAL Competence Center in the south of Graz, the international lighting company XAL adds a unique lighting technology laboratory for pioneering research and development to its local base.

courtesy INNOCAD Architektur, photo by Paul Ott

The riverside site of a former toy manufacturer accommodates more than seventy engineers and designers. The building was adapted with regard to function, technical infrastructure, and thermal insulation and in keeping with the latest advances in knowledge management.

courtesy INNOCAD Architektur, photo by Paul Ott

Organised on three axes, the two outer axes house the lighting technology laboratories equipped with cutting-edge technology and the open workspace divided by half-height cabinets.

The central axis contains a spacious communication zone for staff and customers, on the one hand allowing a glimpse behind the scenes of development at XAL and, on the other, offering quality space for various meeting and lounge areas, from classical multimedia meeting room to kitchen, playground with table football table and pin-ball machine, to quiet zones with basket-chair-style meeting booths and the Zen-inspired atrium with its vertical "Green Wall".

courtesy INNOCAD Architektur, photo by Paul Ott

The outer face of the building also corresponds to this calm, clear aesthetic. Tracing the silhouette of the existing building, a variously perforated box profile sheet façade envelopes the entire outer shell as a linear bar code, framing the building as a calm integral whole.

courtesy INNOCAD Architektur, photo by Paul Ott

Towards the river, as a kind of "brace" protruding out of the building, the building opens onto the park-style outside area, which continues the stringency and clarity of the XAL corporate architecture. As the most innovative brand in building lighting, LED and light design, XAL not only aims to develop extraordinary products, but also to create a powerful identity by designing the entire setting and to express this identity in XALcc's overall concept.

courtesy INNOCAD Architektur, photo by Paul Ott

+ Project

XAL corporate architecture
Planning / Project control: INNOCAD Architektur ZT GmbH, Graz, Austria
Client: XAL GmbH, Graz, Austria
Usable floor space: 1900m²
Start of construction: 2009
Completion: 2010
Construction costs: EUR 1.8 million
Photographer: Paul Ott

+ All images and drawings courtesy INNOCAD Architektur