Architact Concept - issue 02 March 2010

Topic : AR Concept | Commercial

Page : 029 - 035

Text: Mohammad Zani

YTL- Lot 10 Rooftop Garden Development
A Garden Paraside in The City
New life has been breathed into the once iconic Lot 10 shopping complex, located along Jalan Bukit Bintang in the form of a ‘green’ and lifestyle oriented roof garden. Realizing that the days of the old Lot 10 were numbered and that it could no longer compete with new ‘rivals’ within the Bukit Bintang business district, current owners YTL Corporation Berhad embarked on a project that will not only transform the image of Lot 10 into an entertainment hub but also reinforce the corporation’s commitment towards green initiatives, promotions of the arts and healthy lifestyle living. The new rooftop addition totals 6,540 square metres and consists of a fitness centre, a 5 star restaurant, a café, a club and a theatre which is now the new home of the previously Bangsar-based ‘Actor’s Studio’.

Designed by Ar. Tan Hin Lin, the principal of Hintan Associates, the project typically turned the entire concept of the Bukit Bintang shopping experience topsy-turvy by locating the proposed facilities of the new development not on the street level where the normal shopper traffic is located but moving them 8 storeys up onto what was previously the rooftop carpark for the Lot 10 shopping complex. The unique strategy of translocating shoppers from the bustling street-level to elevated lush green jungle-style landscape involves internal and external lifts critically playing the role of signaling beacons that mark clear and visible routes and pathways for the transfer to occur.

The transference from the retail street to landscape paradise is seen to be the most critical aspect to the commercial and architectural success of the project. The unique collaboration of HinTan and Seksan Design, as architect and landscape consultant, has also succeeded in a novel inter-weaving of architecture, landscape and interior design. The architectural rooftop additions can be described as a tightly-knit informal collection of buildings that are grouped around artistically rendered landscaped gardens. While the various buildings are connected by shaded alleyways, the landscape courtyards serve as green visual and physical counterpoints for all interior spaces.

Comprehension of the entire scale of the project and its separate buildings is almost impossible to make within the tight circulation spaces. Traversing the alleyways, the visitors are expected to stumble upon various surprises – turn a corner and gaze upon vertical gardens and forested patches dispersed between facades or enter through a small door and find themselves within a large room. The conglomeration of the three buildings, theatre, club and restaurant, are artfully linked by pitched roofs and stylistically bounded by folding ‘origami’ walls of metallic graphite cladding. Departing from his earlier design disposition of structural purity of forms and elements, Hin Tan’s approach makes the architectural planes and surfaces of the enclosed structures dominate and to further contain and define the external gardens.

Steel elements were used extensively throughout the Lot 10 rooftop addition project as the weight of the new addition is the main concern of the project as well as logistical concerns of expeditiously delivering and cleanly erecting the project within the centre of a busy city district. The project is also a lesson in 'e-craft' where computer generated 3-dimensional models play a significant role in the analysis of the building structure from which the contractor's software was able to facilitate in the fabrication of steel elements via computer-controlled machinery. As space was also the primary concern within the tight constraints of the site, the structures of the new additions were muted and relegated into the background with all main loads cleanly resolved into the existing structural grid and old carpark slabs.

The new rooftop garden development of Lot 10 has transformed a formerly underused parking space into one of the most natural, soothing and refreshing venue within the Bukit Bintang retail district. The successful and unique combination of architecture and landscape has also resulted in a project that celebrates both up-scale and lifestyle retail spaces as well as abundant well-manicured lawn and trees that is true to the development’s tagline and concept of being a true “Forest in the City”.

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