Seazen Suzhou Wuyue Plaza

Marco Polo proclaimed Suzhou the “Venice of the East” and was a center of business and commerce in China with its Grand Canal. Our goal was to create an authentic, contemporary reinterpretation, using world-class design thinking and internationally proven techniques.

Inspired by the Chinese saying, "Above there is heaven, below there are Suzhou and Hangzhou”, we created a dichotomy within the mall to generate dynamics and dialogues between the “heavenly” retail indoor street punctuated by skylights on the top floor, and the retail floors below. The top floor (L6) is a modern interpretation of street life and the waterway landscape of Pinjiang Road. With careful analysis of macro and micros elements that make up Pinjiang Road, Benoy successfully designed and recreated an indoor retail street with authentic atmospheres of Old Town on top of newly developed shopping mall. On the typical retail floors (L1-5), the design concept was inspired by artisan tradition of carving and craftmanship of woodworking. The carving of sinuous, fluid surfaces informed the interior design elements on the lower 5 floors. Such examples can be observed throughout the mall interior, from the signature curved atrium edges to the dynamic curved wall cladding panels around the lift lobbies.