Xian SKP: A New Dawn in Shopping Center Design

LDPi China Branch's Innovative Lighting Design Wins Silver A' Design Award

The Xian SKP project is a renovation of the former Shaanxi Cultural Center, located at the South gate of Xian, the starting point of the ancient Silk Road. The design team aimed to create a symbiotic ecosystem between the architectural and interior design, and the lighting design. The result is a shopping experience that not only highlights the retail products but also reveals the unique elements of the building through lines and curves that reflect the corporate identity of the client.

The project's uniqueness lies in its innovative use of lighting. The facade features hidden linear 3000K DMX controlled LED lights under the bronze mullions, revealing exceptional horizontal lines and curves at night. The interior lighting, with a high CRI (above 90) LEDs, ensures products are displayed at their best. The color temperature is 3000K, except in the vivid first floor beauty/cosmetics area and third floor atrium where the color temperature is 4000K.

Realizing this design required meticulous planning and experimentation. Three 1:1 mockups were necessary for the facade to determine the most efficient lighting effect, and how and where to install the lighting fixtures properly. The interior design was based on the successful renovation of the Beijing SKP, requiring only a single 1:1 mockup to confirm the design.

The project faced several challenges, including ensuring that the items confirmed during the mockups were used in the actual facade and resolving problems that occurred during and after construction when the actual conditions for lighting installations differed from the original design. Despite these challenges, the team successfully completed the project, with the lighting design starting in November 2016 and the project having a soft opening in May 2018.

The Xian SKP is an iconic shopping center that reflects the identity of the client and spreads around and within the 19-storey 164,779 m2 tower A and 6-storey 72,268 m2 tower B. The innovative design, which combines architectural and interior design with advanced lighting technology, has earned the project a Silver A' Design Award, a testament to its outstanding expertise and innovation.