COOL, FLOWING LINES
DEFINE RETAIL VIBE

The Times Square retail atrium in Dalian is in the podium-and-tower development designed by Arquitectonica, and it introduced an extremely clean-lined architecture to the centre of the city. The design of the building’s two-level retail atrium was a three-way collaboration between Antony Chan, the client, and the architect. The central challenge was to remove any sense of the atrium’s original rectilinear ‘shell’ space. Antony’s key decision was to repeat the clean-lined language of the exterior, but do so with curves which would create relaxing perspectives and flowing circulation spaces.

A key aspect of the interior design was to minimise the detailing to avoid visual clutter, and this is evident in the precise handrail line of the glass balcony balustrade, and in the elegantly designed glass smoke-baffles suspended from the ground floor ceiling. Other notable features include the precisely faceted Corian reception desk, the large-scale external images for the individual stores, and the elegant curves of the lighting-tracks and stepped atrium ceiling. The unusual green ‘spinning top’ seats have light-poles that can be seen from outside the atrium at night.