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 recognizes 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 10 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 master plan that 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 aims 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, rainwater harvesting, grey water recycling, and solar power farms.
Protection against storm surges is provided by elevating the site approximately 7.5 meters above mean sea level, 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, saving on energy consumption while creating a natural, relaxed environment.
In addition to promoting a healthy lifestyle through world-class offerings of the 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”. (PR)