Login
Registered users
Pixels are central to Kokaistudios’ design approach. Their interpretation is both literal - such as the mall’s transparent grid facade - as well as conceptual: individual units that come together create a cohesive whole. They are most visible on the mall’s Nanjing Road frontage where an outdated glass and stone facade has been replaced by a series of large-sized rectangles and squares of varying dimensions and gradated opacities, each protruding from the building’s core volume to create the impression of floating. Effectively acting as individual shop windows, this ‘pixel’ approach allows tenants to customize their own vitrines.
Despite their contemporary connotations, the ‘pixels’ connect the mall to its historic urban context. Directly opposite is one of the city’s best-preserved lòngtáng: typical of Shanghai and dating from the early twentieth century, they are walled compounds of traditional lane housing, usually two- to three-storeys in height. CITIC SQUARE’s pixels facade create a scale in keeping with the older architecture opposite. The dialogue between old and new continues through the frontage’s materials of fully transparent glass panes, semi-opaque glass bricks, and UHPC concrete panel.
Kokaistudios’ recently completed architectural renovation project of CITIC SQUARE shopping mall epitomizes Shanghai’s inherent duality. With a futuristic aesthetic combining multimedia elements and some of today’s most sought-after brands, it sits seamlessly alongside one of the city’s best-preserved examples of traditional, historic lane housing. Located in Jingan district on main thoroughfare Nanjing West Road, the transformed building’s pixel-inspired facade and carefully selected materials break the traditional ‘box’ shape to blur the boundaries between city and mall, public and private. Completed in 2000, the mall lacked several of the elements demand by today’s lifestyle-led retail environment: flexible multimedia components; attractive outdoor spaces; and eye-catching interiors for high-profile, luxury F&B outlets. Kokaistudios’ interior and exterior renovation not only brings the mall up to date in terms of a destination shopping-hospitality experience, it successfully reintegrates CITIC SQUARE into the fabric of Shanghai by opening up previously hidden vistas, and playing on scale to complement the mall’s layered urban context.
In order to stand out in Shanghai’s increasingly congested retail landscape, malls must move with the times. At the same time, these large-footprint buildings must be comprehensively and seamlessly incorporated into public spaces. Kokaistudios’ smart renovation of CITIC SQUARE achieves just this balance: now a fully flexible multimedia, lifestyle venue, it doesn’t dominate the Jingan skyline; rather it complements a rich, varied urban fabric.
Kokaistudios is an award winning architecture and interior design firm founded in 2000 in Venice by Italian architects Filippo Gabbiani & Andrea Destefanis. Headquartered in Shanghai since 2002 we have grown into multi-cultural firm of 60 people working on a global scale with projects in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America. Kokaistudios partners with our clients to collaboratively develop innovative & ground breaking projects in diverse fields of design. Primarily focused on developing cultural, corporate, commercial, hospitality & retail projects we have also worked extensively on urban regeneration projects involving the requalification of heritage locations. Kokaistudios aims to develop projects that add positively to the built environment and social fabric of the cities and countries in which they are located.
