Set within a greenbelt site in China’s south-western province of Sichuan, SKP Chengdu is the largest ever sunken and sustainable luxury retail masterplan. It comprises three interconnected spaces – two distinctive underground retail environments, overlaid with a vast civic park. Covering 260,000 sq m, 99 percent of the buildings are underground. Created in just over three years, SKP Chengdu is a dense, walkable, mixed-use development connected by road and rail lines to the city and airport. Criss-crossing the park, canyon-like avenues cut into the landscape connecting the 500,000 sq m of submerged retail environments known as SKP-N (North) and SKP-S (South). A low carbon, smart city
development, according to architect Sybarite, the project ‘consumes energy based on scientific calculation and leverages the latest technology to achieve energy saving, environmental protection, pollution and emission reduction, and low carbon production methods’.