Sparch: Vision City, Kuala Lumpur

Covering a land area of over 30,000sqm, the original Vision City was intended for completion more than a decade ago when financial problems halted the construction work, leaving the site with a massive piece of bare concrete structure. The current owner acquired the development rights with the intention of dressing up the existing mass, located four monorail stops from Kuala Lumpur’s main shopping district, into a swanky new icon for the neighbourhood and the city.

Transformation, not Conversion

Sparch’s (formerly SMC Alsop) vision for the development goes beyond the brief of interior fit out and façade cladding as that would merely amount to a conversion of use of the pre-defined spaces. To truly transform the current spaces within the block and also its relationship to the street, Sparch cracked open the monolith, hollowing out the central portion to create a hybrid space—a voluminous garden naturally ventilated but sheltered from the elements—that is an extension of the urban fabric. With the originally planned hermetic air-conditioned box now drawing the streetscape into its carved out volume, Vision City deviates from the mold of the ubiquitous modern mall, engaging more directly its immediate surroundings, physically as well as visually, to realize the urban rejuvenation that its developers and urban planners are envisioning for the neighbourhood.

Environmental Engineering

With the creation of the elevated Garden, Sparch aims to achieve at least 30% additional savings in air-conditioning load over the development’s original design. Critical to the scheme is the climatic comfort conditions on the Garden level and the central platforms suspended within that volume. Besides ensuring the printed filigree canopy keeps out monsoon rains and direct tropical sunlight, other environmental challenges include maximization of natural wind flow by sculpting the central void and reduction of humidity levels via strategic mechanical means. A Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis will have to be performed in the early design stages to achieve the required comfort level that ensures the Garden, the heart of the mall, remains at all times of the day a highly animated urban environment.

Sense of Arrival

To address the owner’s concerns of business viability on the upper levels, the apparent height of the interior volume is reduced by lifting the central Garden two levels above the ground. From this elevated green plane, a series of landscaped terraces cascade towards the street to mark the arrival at the foot of the mall. The user is invited to embark on a processional journey up the terraces. Upon arrival at the Garden he will be greeted by a central sculpture that tessellates vertically from the raised ground to branch out into a soaring canopy of printed glass and ETFE.

Retail Visibility

The strategy of bringing the outside in and up has practical values beyond creating new spatial and sequential experiences—it provides for more façade frontage and exposure to retail units. The high visibility levels across the surrounding galleries, the suspended dining platforms and the main garden space below—also envisaged with cafes and a concept food bazaar—serve to increase the economic value of the mall development.

Over 200 metres of frontage runs along the main street. The through-slot that breaks the original facade monotony allows differential treatments to either side of it. One part is to be cladded in porous planted latticework, the treatment being more sympathetic with the nature of the serviced apartment block rising directly above; while the other side dons true retail colours—a patchwork of animated LEDs and illuminated advertisement windows.

Project Data

Retail Mall 100,300 sqm GFA, 6 Storeys above Ground, 4 Storeys Basements  Design Start: July 2008; Projected Construction Start: End 2009

Credits

Architecture, Landscape, and Interior Design:
Sparch (formerly SMC Alsop’s Asia offices) Design Director:
Stephen Pimbley
Team:
Ho Hsiu Yen, Chong Sing Keat, Lim Wen Hui, Alvin Fong, Michael Gibert, Tan Kim Lee, Darmaganda.
Client: Quill Retail Malls Sdn Bhd  Project Manager: CapitaLand Commercial Project Management
Local Architect: Michael Ong Chartered Architect

sfte (all images © Sparch Asia)