(Left photo, left to right) ULI Global CEO Patrick Phillips, SM Supermalls President Annie Garcia, and ULI Philippines Chair Raymond Rufino present the Special Commendation Award for SM Seaside City Cebu from the ULI Philippines Building Healthy Places Awards. (Right photo) The SM Seaside City Cebu mall facade.
(20 July 2016. Taguig City, Philippines) SM Prime’s SM Seaside City Cebu was recognized by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Philippines Building Healthy Places Awards in the Commercial-Retail category, last July 14.
ULI Philippines’ Building Healthy Places Awards recognize outstanding and innovative projects that add value to the community, promote healthy life choices, and enhance the environment.
The entries were evaluated based on ULI’s ten principles for building healthy places: Putting people first; Empowering champions for health; Energizing shared spaces; Making healthy choices easy; Ensuring equitable access; Mixing it up; Embracing unique character; Promoting access to healthy food; Making it active; and Recognizing the economic value.
SM Seaside City Cebu is the center of a future 30-hectare mixed-use masterplan which will hold office, residential, and hospitality components. It provides not only convenient retail, food and beverage outlets, services, and leisure activities, but also public transport access, outdoor roof-gardens, and a green inner courtyard in which social and communal activities can take place.
The mall holds outlets for several physical and leisure activities, such as fitness centers, bowling-lanes and ice-skating. It also contains medical clinics, health-food outlets, drug-stores and spas. Outdoor playgrounds and water-playgrounds in the roof-garden provide physical outlets for kids, while a perimeter jogging path allows visitors, workers, and residents to stay fit. Aside from the mall’s content, its architecture aim to promote human interaction in the mall, which is considered critical to its success. SM Seaside City Cebu is not just a place to shop; it is designed to be the social hub of the local community, and the architecture aims to reflect this role, with its grand entrances, central courtyard, and sweeping gardens.
SM Seaside City Cebu also adopts various environmental measures, such as district cooling, rain-water harvesting, grey-water recycling, and solar-power farms. Protection against storm surges is provided by elevating the site approximately 7.5m above mean sea level, thereby allowing the mall to be a refuge in times of flooding. The roof-gardens provide heat insulation, while the interiors are flooded with daylight through extensive skylights and window-walls, thereby saving on energy consumption while creating a natural, relaxed environment.
In addition to promoting healthy lifestyle through world-class offerings of this state-of-the-art and environmentally sustainable mall, the ULI Philippines Building Healthy Places award confirms that SM Seaside City Cebu is certainly “A Mall Above All”.
