Hankyu Nishinomiya Gardens

We planned Japan’s first circuit mall, with its parking lot internalized in the center. This configuration was a solution to the unusual site shape, close to square, the situation in the surrounding area, and the need to maximize shop frontage length while making mall access as convenient as possible. We placed a large garden, the Sky Garden, in the roof of the central parking lot. We intended this Sky Garden and the extensive vegetation planted on the walls to produce a high-quality space where people can feel the presence of nature, which created a face for the urban development around the new Nishinomiya North Exit. We created this design to be a pioneer in large-scale metropolitan shopping centers. The cladding design has the kind of expression that is only possible with reinforced concrete walls, but to relieve the buildings overpowering sense of scale, we divided it into blocks and gave each area a different individual expression.