Linyi is an up-and-coming city in the province of Shandong, China, with a rich 2,400-year history.  The retail district is placed along a developing green belt, adjacent to a planned war museum in honor of the city’s history in military strategy.   A city park anchors the project on the green belt, acting as an important organizational feature for the required program.  A living mall acts as a conduit for the green belt, transferring physical and visual circulation into the park.  The park is split into two levels, ground level and a sunken garden which connects the east and west plots of the project underneath BaYi Road.  A series of pavilions or “tree houses,” are scattered along the park allowing for restaurants and cafes in the space.  These pavilions also help bridge the section from the ground level park to the sunken garden, connecting to the For-Sale-Retail program that rings the lower space.

The Master plan program consists of six main elements: Mall Retail / For-Sale-Retail, a City Park, an Icon Office Tower, Food and Beverage, Entertainment, and Service Apartment Towers.   The park and living mall create two sets of axis that the project is organized around; an orthographic axis and an axis shifted 15 degrees off of it.  The Mall uses this organization to move away from the standard layout, in which some tenants are able to face into the premier atrium space while others face into mall circulation.  The shifting axis creates elongated atriums in which all tenants are able to face into the premier spaces of the mall.  The Icon Office Tower physically connects to the mall providing Class A office space.