Shanghai, China
With great attention to the community, the environment, and sustainability, AIM Architecture’s Xintiandi Style II Shopping Center is located in a city block and operates as one, with several entrances on opposite streets that connect its residential, office, and commercial surroundings.
By activating and opening the building, people are invited in and the building functions as an interior street, leading visitors through the building.
The mall becomes then a modern public space, in a dynamized neighborhood, where people gather and connect.
It aims to rebuild and redefine the concept of retail, with effective architectural interventions that bridge the gap between the luxury of mall architecture and the eco-friendly approach experience.
Three keywords inspired the new Xintiandi Style II: reusing, recycling, and reducing.
The concept is expressed throughout the overall mall, by using recycled materials, recyclable surfaces, and sustainable solutions.
Demolishing a building always produces a lot of waste.
As a sustainable design strategy, we keep and celebrate the most important original elements that characterize the existing mall, while the demolished materials are crushed, reassembled, and reused in other forms and shapes.
All materials from the construction site are transformed into new finishes, furniture, and objects.
The design aims to instate a dialogue between old and new, past, and present.
On one hand, the overall space shows the real nature of the building, exposing the existing concrete columns and beams.
The several layers of the buildings are revealed and not hidden under a big layer of unnecessary material finishes.
The canyon, an urban element, transforms the lower ground into a sequence of recycled aluminum “rooms.”
Creating a continuance of experiences, each characterized by the brands within them, unique furniture configurations inviting people to stay and interact with the brands.
A space changed from a long straight corridor to a string of tailored experiences.
The rooms built of recycled aluminum, a refined material, stand out and guide the visitors through the mall.
Emphasizing the contemporaneity of the space, creating a contrasting combination between past and present, surprise and wonder.
Three main entrances invite people into the mall.
By removing the existing glass facade and pushing the boundary inwards, we create a friendly transition space.
With three different themes, related to sustainability, each access is different and acts as an experiential “city living room,” inviting the people and the city.
The north entrance represents the beauty of simplicity and balance of elements, expressing the value of reducing to the essentials.
The middle entrance explains the importance of recycling, displaying sculptural elements created with recycled elements from the construction site.
The south entrance is the green portal, to remind us that nature is an essential part of our life, even in this urban context.
Project: Xintiandi Style II Shopping Center
Architects: AIM Architecture
Lead Architect: Davide Signorato
Project Manager: Lei Zhao
Design Team: Caddie Qu, Chen Yuan, Jin Kang, Luqian Lin, Mia Lei, and Yi Zhang
Client: SHUI ON XINTIANDI STYLE II
Photographers: Wen Studio
