Shopping malls in China: Oasys MassMotion

Arup’s pedestrian planning team have assisted the New World Development and K11 Concept Limited in planning a series of shopping art malls in China. These art malls have unique design concepts that seamlessly integrate garden, art, and shopping, which provide an imaginative experience to the user with a blended cultural and retail experience. The K11 Art Mall marks the efforts of establishing a one of a kind cultural-commerce relationship in Greater China. 

Pedestrian experience simulation software, Oasys MassMotion, was used to analyse a wide range of scenarios in the malls – from density of key entries and exits and corridors, to patron experience at different hours of the day or year. MassMotion helped to deliver successful, user-focused environments by predicting how autonomous agents will interact with each other and the building environment. MassMotion plays a valuable role in optimising existing facilities, predicting future performance of new designs, testing operational scenarios for future years, and communicating complex scenarios to a non-technical audience.  

One of the key design considerations was to facilitate the large flow of visitors and by–passers to and from surrounding developments. Based on visitor footprint within the mall, MassMotion was used to identify where the ‘hot zones’ (more visitors) were, balanced against ‘cold zones’ (fewer visitors) by strategically locating specific types of shops, together with crowd circulation. Key performance measures included the landing of escalators, atria, and major entrances, so that potential conflicts could be identified and resolved through improvement measures.  

Oasys would like to thank Arup for sharing this work with us.