Central Embassy retail open for business

The retail mall of Bangkok’s Central Embassy is now open, following a grand opening, with performances by stars including A$AP Rocky.

Located within the former gardens of the British Embassy along Ploenchit Road, Bangkok’s primary commercial artery, the 1.5 million sq ft project, commissioned by Central Retail Corporation, merges a seven storey luxury retail podium and a 30 storey 5 star hotel tower into a cohesive and sinuously twisting shape.

The elevated form that rises from the podium wraps around two vertical light wells, opening up internal spaces to reveal stepped terraces, and dividing hotel functions: private guest-related programmes face the gardens of Lai Nert Park, while the hotel bar, reception lounge and sky terrace face the city centre.

Merging plinth and tower

A 30 storey hotel and seven storey shopping mall are bound using the notion of a continual looped form to give a more intuitive merging between plinth and tower, and programmatic functions.

The continuity of the tower line appears to break down the volume of the mass of the plinth.

Challenging the conventional plinth and tower typology was the catalyst for mixing the functions of the hotel and shopping mall programmes.