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Torre Sevilla
Seville, Spain

The reimagination of commercial office space into a successful new retail centre

In 2015 Broadway Malyan was commissioned by Caixa Bank, through Puerto Triana SAU as developer of the Torre Sevilla building complex, to create a new design concept for the podium buildings at the base of the César Pelli tower that dominates the skyline of Seville.

The buildings were originally designed to house offices on the upper floors with a small commercial area on the ground floor but the economic conditions that followed meant that a new concept was needed to revitalise the whole complex.

The concept of creating a retail destination that would connect the tower with the CaixaForum cultural centre at the opposite end of the development was explored as Sevilla had no major commercial developments of the scope found in other cities of similar size and destiny.

The initial challenges included converting two separate buildings, with their curved and landscaped roofs, into a shopping cente with a single homogeneous function. In addition, the level of the surrounding streets and, therefore, access from outside, was significantly raised compared to the Central Plaza between buildings.

The new design for the mall raised three fundamental concepts. The first was to eliminate the facades of the buildings that looked towards the inner square in the public circulation areas to make the most of the city's climatological advantage and open the building to the city.

The second was to connect the two buildings at all levels. On the ground floor of the square it was planned to generate more activity in the outside open spaces with a series of kiosks and the reinforcement of the living areas with abundant landscaping.

Torre Sevilla shopping centre in Spain, designed by Broadway Malyan

On the access floor, one level above the interior plaza, the only existing footbridge was reinforced with two others, located in strategic locations that favored circulation, creating in addition two new footbridges on the upper floor. The third aspect was perhaps the most important and difficult and that was the overcome the challenges of the low height of the upper floors and the great length of the buildings.

For this, in addition to solutions such as reducing the height of technical ceilings to the maximum, it was decided to "break" store fronts, as well as false ceilings and floor finishes. In this way, instead of a long and monotonous mall, a shopping centre was created with totally different spaces on all its floors.

Parallel to the structural work, the façade works were undertaken although in order not to distort the original concept of César Pelli, the vertical brown ceramic elements were retained with a new glass railing installed.

It was also agreed during the development phase that the main access points to the shopping centre lacked visibility due to the original design, in which the buildings would have offices. To correct this, two new external zones have been created in the two main entrances. The South zone, next to the tower, is oriented towards the Avenue of the Expo 92 to receive the footfall from the bridge of the Cachorro.

The Eastern zone, next to the Path of the Discoveries, connects with the new park next to the Guadalquivir river.The new entrances better connect the commercial centre with the street and generate new spaces to welcome e the visitors. Broken porches delimit the exterior "entrances" and protect them from the sun by means of micro-perforated canvas.

The new scheme is fully occupied with a range of tenants including Andalucía’s first Primark and was launched to the public in September 2018 when it received 60,000 visitors on the first day and has become one of the most visited shopping centres in Spain with more than one million visits during its first month.

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