Mega Silk Way wins ‘Your BREEAM’ Award at the 2020 BREEAM Awards
Mega Silk Way in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, has won the ‘Your BREEAM’ Award at the 2020 BREEAM Awards. The scheme was also highly commended in the “Rest of the World” (i.e. outside Europe) category for its sustainability features.
The ‘Your BREEAM’ Award was voted for by members of the public as its favourite of the 49 developments shortlisted for BREEAM Awards.
BREEAM is the best-known sustainability assessment method for masterplanning projects, infrastructure and buildings. The annual BREEAM Awards honour the most innovatively sustainable BREEAM-certified buildings of the past 12 months. The awards ceremony took place on Monday 2 March at the Hilton London Bankside Hotel.
Mega Silk Way is a 60,000m² GLA retail and entertainment project which opened to much acclaim in March 2017. Built within the masterplan for EXPO 2017, the centre includes retail, restaurants, Kazakhstan’s first IMAX cinema, a 400-seat ice rink, children’s entertainment areas and an indoor rollercoaster.
Sustainability features include high energy efficiency (particularly for a development in a region characterised by temperature extremes), steps to optimise water consumption for sanitary and domestic purposes, a rainwater collection system in a 145m3 tank for irrigation of green spaces, extensive glazing for natural light and excellent public transport links. The development targeted BREEAM In-Use certification from the outset, achieving "Very Good" for asset performance and "Excellent" for Building Management.
Mega Silk Way is the major gateway to the EXPO site, which now functions as Kazakhstan’s World Trade Centre, and has acted as a legacy emblem since EXPO’s conclusion. The development is a beautiful public space which is enjoyed by an estimated two million people per month for its variety of attractions, and it has become a landmark symbol of local and national pride.
The shopping centre represents a transformation in retail development thinking – a friendly, enjoyable shopping space, but also a community hub. Retail is important, and thriving, but the scheme centres on providing a local public space and meeting point.
The striking design feels essentially Kazakh – responding to how locals perceive space and what kind of provisions appeal to them, while using works by local creatives to foster a sense of local ownership of the development. The design is sustainable and responsible, befitting a gateway to, and legacy symbol of, EXPO 2017.
Our design for Mega Silk Way won the 2019 International Property Award for “Best International Retail Architecture.”
Congratulations to everyone involved in realising this remarkable development on this well-deserved award.