Year : 2019.

Location : October, Egypt.

Program: Commercial | 98,250 m2 B.U.A. 

The brief includes retail spaces, cinemas, department store, food court, clinic center and a kindergarten.

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Located in the new expansion for the 6th October city, The project stands within a private development premises on its dedicated service lot, With an allowable foot print of 30% of the total service lot area. The brief composed of Mall, Kindergarten & Clinics.

Our design question was: Why do we end up with abandoned Malls?  Hypothetically, our response was due to the lack of well-designed spaces & circulation, lack of flexibility, losing sense of orientation, poorly lit spaces and mostly malls’ capacity to host variety and mixed functions that may alter with time, for instance gym, co-working spaces, big department stores, cinemas etc.

Our design intuition aimed to design a continuous building block made up of different mixes of complementing ingredients to attract diversity, the continuity & scale of the mass would mesmerize the comprehensive identity.

Tangible intersection develop interest, the block is made up of volumes of different functions & expression combined together. One volume dedicated for Clinics & Kindergarten at one end, another volume dedicated for Department stores, Cinemas, and roof top facilities, the connecting body between both is the Retail, Food court & Plaza. This varied massing composition, respectively façade treatment, avoided monotony. At the intersection between function comes entries with defined identities.

Taking into consideration preferable wind direction and pleasant views towards the compound, we shaped the building in the form of a semi U-shaped block, tiled one side for a better exposure towards wind, views& main street approach. The resultant is an inner plaza that opens up towards the preferences. This enclosure creates a world of its own; an outdoor plaza for gatherings and collective body presence, on its background, the building creates a perfect wall sheltering this enclosure from street noise and the excessive south sun.

Adding another notch to the design, by carving the ground floor and pushing the plaza level one floor down, this enabled us to increase the facilities overlooking the plaza, creating direct access to cinemas and food court from the plaza giving it a more independent and public engaging notch.

Benefit:

• Adding extra food space and terraces overlooking the plaza

• Adding a totally independent operating level for food court, cafes and cinemas apart of the mall.

• Segregating the public collective activity of the plaza from the residential level, reducing undesirable noise transition.