NAYADA worked on a landmark project – the Columbus SEC in Moscow

The NAYADA Company participated in the creation of the Columbus Shopping and Entertainment Center, one of the largest new-generation shopping centers in Moscow. The Columbus SEC (total area – 277,000 sqm) is located on the Warsaw Highway, a strategic road leading to the ‘New Moscow’. The developers and investor of the Columbus SEC was MIRS LLC. The consultant in the project was Cushman & Wakefield. General contractor – Renaissance Construction Company. Architect – the international architectural bureau – C Concept Design.

In their work on one of the largest shopping centers in Moscow, the architects were inspired by Central Park in New York – an unparalleled public space, with simple and intuitive pedestrian traffic circulation. Particular attention was paid to the architecture of the complex: a lot of sunny, natural lighting, thanks to the numerous atriums, good visibility from every floor of the mall, and huge high windows – all this provides a great opportunity for retailers to make interesting design concepts when creating their showcases and entrance areas

NAYADA manufactured and installed 11,000 sqm of glass showcases. The showcases on the first floor have a height of 7.5 meters! To ensure reliability and rigidity, 12-mm glass was used, and additional glass edging was installed. Used for fastening were spider systems and point mounting.

“The Columbus is a unique retail project for the Moscow market, since this was the first time a new format was used for first-floor stores – 7.5-meters high showcases,” said Director of the C Design Concept Matthew Vander Borg. “This enables tenants to create two-level fashion-gallery stores with panoramic showcases – to present their brands’ products. This architectural solution, in particular, was used in the well-known Westfield Shopping Centre in London and in Galleria SEC in St. Petersburg. C Concept Design deliberately chose a neutral solution for designing the interior of the shopping center, especially avoiding the creation of a thematic environment.

“As architects, we made sure that the buyer’s attention was entirely directed to the stores and products offered by them,” said Matthew Vander Borg.

NAYADA installed all the glass facings of the elevator shafts on all floors of the shopping center. For this purpose tempered glass was used, attached using spider and point mounting systems.

The Columbus has a total of about 300 stores and over 25 restaurants. Among the major anchor tenants are the OK Hypermarket, M Video Consumer Electronics Hypermarket, and a 14-screen Kinomax Cinema. The first two floors house a conceptually unique fashion gallery with a total area of 70,000 sqm. The center also provides space for a children’s entertainment area, with carousels, an artificial ice rink, and a food court.