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Located on Singapore’s premier shopping belt, the Mandarin Gallery is part of the Takashimaya-Paragon-Mandarin Gallery shopping triangle. The scope of the project was the upgrading and retro-fitting of the hotel podium to a shopping centre.The scheme seizes the opportunity to contribute to the vibrancy and vitality of the Orchard Mall experience and exploits the exceptionally long frontage of the plot facing the Orchard Road. Shifting the vehicular driveway and hotel drop-off to the Orchard Link, this design strategy immediately value-adds to both the hotel, which gains a grand sky lit lobby at level 5, and the Mandarin Gallery, by allowing high-end, flagship shops along the Orchard Road frontage direct street level access by pedestrians.
Through creative interpretation of the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) guidelines relating to façade articulation and urban verandah, the design was conceived as ways to bring buzz and vibrancy to the Orchard Road. This supports both URA’s urban design and client’s objectives of value-adding to the property. Conceptualised as a highly articulated play of inter-layered surfaces with the two corners, the façade colour scheme adopts interplay of white, shades of grey and silver to provide a backdrop to complement the duplex shops along the street front.
At night, the 'piano key' lighting effect is formed by a series of vertical light boxes that replicate 'frozen music'. A curvilinear circulation loop allows the sequential revelation of shop-fronts, adding an element of exploration to the shopping experience. The project supports environmental sustainability by choosing adaptive re-use over demolition and retro-fitting over preserved façade where possible.
The double-skin façade system that comprises of external new curtain wall and inner layer of existing walls are fitted with double-glazed units at vision glass areas that will greatly reduce heat load while fulfilling client’s requirement for façade transparency. The overall manipulation of the façade, canopy and elevated entrance elements are choreographed to provide a sense of scale, vitality and identity to the project.