A collaboration between Buchan’s planners, interior and graphic designers for the retail podium, Steven Holl Architects was the overall project design architect. Buchan prepared preliminary plans of the leasing layout targeting key brands for critical locations and the tenancy mix and malls were planned around these anchors and divided into precincts to entice the customer to engage with all areas. A pallet of rich materials and textures gives each area a distinctive design aesthetic and the malls and spaces embody solid retail planning principles of sight lines, anchors and vertical volumes and targeted wayfinding signage to encourage pedestrian flow.
A feature of the development’s planning is luring the surrounding pedestrian thoroughfares into and over the site to come together in a pleasant open public plaza of water features, gardens and public art. Sun penetrates to the site, allowing daylight and breezes to access the central elevated public plaza. The plaza is the roof of the interconnecting retail podium and allows the site to be traversable to pedestrians and the community.
The success of Raffles City Chengdu is evident in its drawing power.
