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The Center
of New
Orchard Road’s new star,
Orchard Central, is set to redefine the shopping experience. |
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NEW RETAIL CONCEPTS; NEW BRANDS; NEW ARCHITECTURAL FORMS AND NEW SERVICE standards — the team behind Orchard Central relooked every single aspect of the mall to reshape the retail experience in Singapore.
For instance, shoppers can dine among
the stars and enjoy a wonderful vantage
point of the Orchard Road stretch in an alfresco garden space specially designed by leading Japanese design house Super Potato (see below).
They can discover new heights of luxurious pampering or even climb the 25-metre, five-storey-high Via Ferrata wall right in the middle of the mall.
An amazing 46 escalators and 12 glass elevators have been integrated into the
design, ensuring ease of movement throughout the building, which with 12 storeys and two basements, will become Singapore’s tallest retail destination.
Then there’s the Jewel Box, a space that will majestically overhang the street below, offering prime retail vantage for the first time in Singapore.
Besides architectural firsts, the mall is also pioneering focused clusters specially assembled to cater to shoppers’ distinct lifestyle needs and desires.
For fans of the Mediterranean lifestyle, The Med at basement 2 is Singapore’s first Mediterranean retail concept and conjures up a Mediterranean marketplace complete with visions of fine foods, cheeses and wines; the smells of freshly baked bread; and the sounds of a lively, bustling bazaar. Covering an area over 33,000 sq ft, The Med will be home to a gamut of retail, lifestyle and F&B outlets — from gelato parlours to wine and cheese specialty grocers, bakeries, pizzerias, chocolatiers, delis and florists — from countries as varied as Italy, Spain, France, Turkey, Morocco and Greece. The basement marketplace will offer easy access to the Somerset MRT station.
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Brand-conscious fashionistas will find all they need at levels 2 and 3 while levels 5 and 6 offer casual fashion apparel. At basement 1, masstige brands and fashion accessories, along with a fast food and dessert corner, beckon. Active lifestyle seekers will enjoy the Via Ferrata wall and a dazzling array of consumer electronics and gadgets on level 4. There is also the pampering cluster with services like spas, beauty boutiques, hair salons and nail bars, while dining options — both casual and fine — abound at levels 7, 8, 11 and 12.
Shoppers can chill out at any of the indoor ‘streetside’ cafes along Discovery Walk on level 1 — a 140-metre-long thoroughfare lined with shops offering mid- to high-lifestyle options.
In line with the unconventional experience that Orchard Central aims to give shoppers, Far East Organization has plans to display about $12 million worth of contemporary artworks by renowned local and international artists around the mall. These diverse pieces range from wire sculptures to multimedia artworks including an LED light display on the facade of the building. The light canvas, which partially encases the facade of Orchard Central, is made of a unique membrane featuring state-of-the-art LED technology. The eye-catching display allows the artist to ‘paint’ on this unconventional canvas — which also acts as a beacon to draw shoppers from the surrounding areas.
In another first, a service designed exclusively for the convenience of shoppers is the Mobile Concierge, which provides personalised concierge service for guests and tenants.
Orchard Central is scheduled for opening in the first quarter of 2009. Opening hours: 11am-11pm. Rooftop Gardens and Discovery Walk will be open 24/7.
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Eyes on Super
Potato
The quirkily-named Japanese interior design firm adds a green touch to ORCHARD CENTRAL. CLARA CHOW finds out more.
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When Orchard Central opens its doors in April next year, shoppers will be able to see the handiwork of renowned Japanese design firm, Super Potato in at least four floors of the mall.
The four floors — the 7th, 8th, 11th and 12th — have been earmarked by Far East Organization for casual and fine dining establishments as part of Orchard Central’s dining cluster.
Conceptualised by Super Potato, which has numerous internationally-acclaimed hotel and retail projects to its whimsical name, the result will be a garden setting, playing with the reality and illusion of a green environment,
right in the heart of
urban consumption.
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Super Potato’s vicepresident
Norihiko
Shinya unveils the
design firm’s plans
for Orchard Central.
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Super Potato’s
handiwork can be
seen at this Orchard
Scotts penthouse.
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In town recently for his monthly site visits, Super Potato’s vice-president Norihiko Shinya teasingly reveals plans which include indoor lighting to mimic the effect of dappled sunlight filtering through a rainforest canopy. Lift lobbies will boast interactive ‘virtual water’ — projected images which react according to visitors’ movements, thanks to sensor technology. And in keeping with the eco-friendly philosophy that Super Potato is known for, recycled materials will play a huge part in the artistic decoration of walls and spaces. Think salvaged timber and scrap-metal reincarnated into huge sculptures, for instance.
Or plates, cups and
bowls re-imagined as aesthetic accents.
“We’ll do it with an injection of some type of Singapore culture,” promises Mr Shinya, of the eco-chic ambience.
For the topmost floors of Orchard Central, a rooftop food haven that is 30 per cent outdoors, Super Potato is advocating the copious use of indigenous plants, even on the walls. “It’ll be quite blooming,” quips Mr Shinya. The trick to achieving these green walls lie in the use of high-tech sponge to replace messy soil beds, as well as the use of a complex concealed irrigation system, he adds.
Already, work is underway to hoist selected plants and trees up the building-in-progress, and keep them alive and healthy even as construction rages all around them.
Water features and infinity pools are also part of the decor, with natural granite and logs as materials. Clear glass is also an important component of the layout. “It’s a see-and-be-seen concept,” says
Mr Shinya. And no wonder as shopping and dining hours are a cool 11am to 11pm daily.
It’s no accident that Super Potato was engaged for the $650 million mall by Far East Organization. After all, the developer had envisioned it as a destination for “confident, well-informed individuals who want to define their own retail experience”, where “you can be who you want to be”.
Mirroring that mantra is Super Potato — the firm’s name derives from a nickname for founder Takashi Sugimoto, whose raw and sublime spaces started gaining attention in the 1970s — which is responsible for a slew of avant-garde interiors around the world. For the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, it crafted a modernist version of the traditional Shinto wedding shrine, bypassing conventional shoji screens to break new ground with granite floors, urethane-finished rosewood ceilings, acrylic louvres and glowing recessed ceiling fixtures. In Singapore, the firm is best known for its longstanding rejuvenation programme for the Grand Hyatt Hotel — including putting a series of theatrical, open-concept kitchens into hip eatery mezza9. It was a move lauded by both design aficionados and foodies alike back in 1998.
The partnership between Far East Organization and Super Potato is hardly a new one. Already, the Japanese design firm has completed commission for the developer’s Orchard Scotts penthouse (its contemporary use of fossilised timber from Bali finding favour with the penthouse’s Indonesian buyers). In the works are a second phase of Orchard Scotts residences, and the crystal-like facade
of Boulevard Vue in
Cuscaden Walk.
As the raw, simple but functional, eco-friendly look championed by Super Potato becomes more popular and oft-copied, Mr Shinya says the company will still focus on the quality of its designs. He explains, “Each stone or sculpture, for example, is scrutinised by us from development to finish. We are into almost every tiny detail. That’s why some contractors hate us.”
When asked what it is like to design a mall with so much to offer, Mr Shinya replies, “The fun of shopping is about discovering something new. If you come with a purpose, it’s easy enough to find your way around. But it’s not as fun.”
To be sure, Orchard Central is set to join the ranks of New Age discovery shopping centres — like Ropponggi Hills in Tokyo, Festival Walk in Hong Kong and AOL Time Warner in New York — with their cosmopolitan offerings infused with a distinctively local flavour.
And with Super Potato bringing its unique perspective to the mix, Orchard Central will be unlike anything Singapore’s retail industry has seen. LM |
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