Shopping and Business Center Los Carmenes

Details_

• CLIENT: Eora
• PROJECT: Riccardo Crespi Architetto (AdHocMsl) + Modostudio
• AREA: 110.000sqm
• BUDGET: 150.000.000€
• PHASES: Preliminary and final design, tender drawings

 Project description_

In 2011, with the Mall and Business Center Los Carmenes 4.0 revision,  the analysis phase related to the development and strategic revision of the aforementioned shopping mall have been completed. It was concluded with the victory of the international competition held by Eora Company.Of the original project, despite the many changes made to meet client’s request, it has preserved the clear identification of functional areas, their permeability, the urbanity goals and eco-efficiency and the  research of architectural value.

General Layout

The great heterogeneity of required mixed-used functions (shopping  mall, a Business Center, small buildings for artisans, 4-star hotel, apartment-hotel, one small health care building and kindergarten ) instead of being ” problem of cohabitation ” has become on the contrary an occasion of mutual enrichment thanks to close relations and dynamics are formed.From the triangular shape of the lot, it was decided to define each side with its own specific functional character. The west side groups the tertiary functions – called Mixed Zone – the north side is dedicated to the “quick” business and trade and the south side -est locates the most representative features of the mixed-use Complex.

Due to the aforementioned functional layout, the Complex is easily accessible however always preserving and separating the service flow from the public one.Automatic flow are located and segregated along the perimeter of the plot only, where the underground public entrances are displaced. From the parking area  the circuit of pedestrian path have origin and connects a series of public spaces and square located on a different level. Squares and path generate a sophisticated circuit of connection , protected and highly designed. It is a artificial landscape, space for the community and for its activities.

Retail and Shopping-mall

The shopping-mall is around 42.300 smq divided in two areas 21.00 smq each. Even if it represents the majority of the buildable area, our strategy is to minimize the volumetric impact and to realize a mall that is perfectly integrated  with the landscape, within a sort of camouflage approach that could create a eco-natural complex integrated within the neighborhood. Accordingly we designed A 5 m high building , characterized by a 250 m long facade  covered with and artificial metal roof treated as a landscape.

Business Center

Apart from the Shopping mall, it represent the second crucial part of the project, in terms of size and functions. It spreads over a total area of 45,300 square meters, of which 27,400 of offices and shopping areas and 17,900 square meters of underground parking on several levels.Completely surrounded by nature, it is accessed by car from the west side through a private road however pedestrians can access from the main front in the south.

One volume of 4.300 mq – containing the entrance hall, a conference center, offices , retails and anchors-   is the basement on which they rest four office buildings of 6 and 8 floors – totaling 15,400 square meters with the addition, as a final and symbolic characteristic element for the entire complex, a 7,700 sq m tower for offices and distributed on 22 plans. To make the space flexible and  to allow the panoramic views from inside, we chose the Core typology. Accordingly a central core contains the staircase-lift block and toilet. The corridor is around the perimeter of the core and it distributes the various offices.

Mixed-use zone

In this area, mainly on the west side, are placed a 4-star hotel of 5,000 sqm on six floors, a 4,000 sqm healthcare building to on 8 storey, a 2,000 sqm apartment hotel related to the Business and few small buildings  550 sqm each for small and medium-sized craft business  for a total of about 5,000 sqm.There is also a 900sqm Kindergarten , intentionally located in the center of the plot, to be easily accessible by all employees but above all to be completely immersed in nature

Eco-efficiency and Sustainibily

Energy efficiency and its sustainability appears to be of the utmost importance, so much so that the commission was intended that Los Carmenes was the first Shopping and Business Center to obtain LEED Gold certification.

The first pursued goal was the optimization of energy demanded, minimizing what is referred to as energy backpack, that is, the amount of energy used for the construction of buildings.In this direction it goes the choice to adapt as much as possible the buildings to the topography of the land apparently burying the Shopping-Mall of the service areas.Direct sun exposure to the west is completely canceled as a result bringing considerable energy savings required for cooling of the shopping mall itself. Other energy-saving passive systems are the skins of the buildings, designed as a double façade formed of a metal outer link and an inner glass facade.

Active systems on the other hand are made from large metal cover that covers the shopping center, which not only acts as a shading function of the underlying spaces but on which you will install the solar panels, and the recycling and purification is rainwater.