Aspan Mall
Aspan Mall forms part of Kazakhstan’s largest mixed-use, residential-led development, positioned at the heart of Astana’s expanding metropolis. The wider scheme brings together retail, F&B, leisure and civic uses including a karting facility, aquatics centre, hotel and business centre, creating a new urban destination. The project is strategically stitched into future phases of the masterplan, establishing a key anchor within the city’s continued growth.
Working through Concept and Schematic Design during the construction phase of the project in parallel has been an exciting and energising design challenge in order to meet the client's aspirations for design speed and quality.
Working with an existing concrete frame, the design reimagines the mall as a sculpted civic landscape, drawing inspiration from the layered rock formations and carved routes of Charyn Canyon. The concept creates a unified language across facade, interiors and public areas, transforming a large retail structure into a more immersive, legible and family-focused destination.
The proposal balances strong visual identity with commercial flexibility. Externally, articulated facade elements, illuminated gaps, active glazed frontages and terrace spaces create depth and rhythm, while avoiding a flat or monolithic appearance. Internally, flowing soffits, tonal floor finishes, integrated columns and carefully defined character zones help break down the scale of the mall and support intuitive wayfinding.
The Astana steppe is defined by its vast, uninterrupted flatness. Emerging from this horizontal landscape, the design draws on a geological language of formations that rise organically from the ground plane. This contrast between the expansive horizon and vertical expression informs the architectural approach, using upward movement and articulated massing to create a distinctive and intriguing identity.
When this language is applied to the existing concrete mass, the envelope is broken down into a series of engaging, human-scale elements. The facade fragments and opens up, creating moments of permeability that draw people in, revealing entrances and routes that invite movement into the heart of the mall.
These permeable arrival moments are shaped through a clear solid–void language, with shopfronts lifted at key public interfaces to enhance openness and visibility. The composition balances the weight of stone-like forms rising from the ground with lighter, veiled elements that soften the mass and invite interaction, creating a welcoming and legible threshold into the mall.
Drone shot of the construction progress in winter highlighting the construction challenges at minus 30. The city skyline in the background, Aspan Mall one of the first anchors for the emerging masterplan.
Main atrium faceted steel installation, roof profile echoing the contour concept. Working closely with the local team to ensure minimum falls for the snow loading. Easier site conditions in June.
On site again in winter working around the snow – a key loading question for the roofscape and minimum falls. Arrival zones with voids over 3 levels from the east and the west of the main building to assist with nodal place-making.
The initial steppe concept and its manifestation from the flatness of the local landscape.
The initial concept draws directly from the vast flatness of the Astana steppe, where the uninterrupted horizon defines both scale and identity. From this expansive ground plane, the architecture is conceived as a series of geological formations that rise with a quiet, sculptural presence. This emergence establishes a clear and legible dialogue between landscape and building, anchoring the project in its context while creating a distinctive vertical expression.
The initial concept draws directly from the vast flatness of the Astana steppe, where the uninterrupted horizon defines both scale and identity. From this expansive ground plane, the architecture is conceived as a series of geological formations that rise with a quiet, sculptural presence. This emergence establishes a clear and legible dialogue between landscape and building, anchoring the project in its context while creating a distinctive vertical expression.
