GRAND GREEN OSAKA — South Commercial Zone

At GRAND GREEN OSAKA, the delineation between the shopping district, station concourse, and urban park has been purposefully softened. In the South Commercial Zone, NOMURA Co., Ltd. has designed the interior as an integral component of Osaka’s larger pedestrian landscape, where retail, food, art, and public circulation collaboratively exist within the same civic environment.

This development is situated within one of the city’s most prominent mixed-use projects, directly connected to Osaka Station and Umekita Park. This strategic positioning influences the character of the commercial floors, featuring spacious pathways, visually accessible entrances, and long vistas that guide the eye toward greenery, terraces, and adjacent public spaces. The overall experience is akin to traversing a neighbourhood rather than entering a conventional shopping center.

The integration of nature is articulated through both landscaping and artistic interpretation. In one atrium, hundreds of suspended reflective elements evoke the appearance of leaves suspended in mid-air. Their polished surfaces fragment the surrounding architecture, people, and shifting light, creating a dynamic canopy that continuously evolves as visitors traverse the space beneath it. Additionally, sweeping bands of illuminated vertical structures delineate graceful curves across the ceiling, introducing a rhythmic elegance to major circulation areas and offering a distinctive identity to the concourse from afar.

This relationship with the landscape is expressed through a vertical arrangement of four distinct themes: Mineral on B1, Grove on 1F, Breeze on 2F, and Daylight on 3F. Each level distinctly conveys its own atmosphere while preserving a coherent connection to the broader theme of nature inherent in the development. The lower floors are characterized by stone-like textures and deeper tones, while the middle levels incorporate plantings and more inviting materials. The upper circulation areas are defined by brighter surfaces and more open ceiling configurations.

The B1 level represents the vibrant energy of an urban market, featuring Time Out Market Osaka, along with various cafés and Japanese restaurants. This area showcases a darker, more dense interior, where exposed ceilings, warm pendant lighting, and graphic signage create a distinctly social environment. This contrasts effectively with the brighter retail floors above, offering a diverse range of experiences that include quick dining options, evening gatherings, as well as shopping for fashion, jewelry, and opportunities for leisurely browsing.

Art is seamlessly integrated at multiple scales. Reflective ceiling installations invigorate major public pathways, while sculptural elements are strategically positioned near restaurants and along quieter passageways. This thoughtful placement allows cultural expressions to become part of the daily movement within the complex, encountered while navigating between shops, awaiting appointments, or proceeding toward the park.

The external architecture further reinforces this integrative relationship. Landscaped terraces, planted borders, and pedestrian courts occupy the spaces between the commercial podium and surrounding towers, effectively extending the retail environment into the public realm of GRAND GREEN OSAKA. From within, glazed openings and garden views maintain this connection, while from the park, the commercial levels present an animated edge to the larger urban district.

The most noteworthy aspect of the South Commercial Zone is the harmonious coexistence of these varied elements. Luxury retail, restaurants, public art, landscaped courtyards, and major commuting pathways each maintain distinct identities without devolving into isolated destinations. NOMURA Co., Ltd. has crafted a commercial interior that actively engages with the life of the district, thus extending the experience of GRAND GREEN OSAKA from the park and streets into the spaces where individuals shop, dine, convene, and spend their leisure time.

The project creates a harmonious balance between fast pedestrian movement and moments of tranquillity. Clear sightlines and open circulation areas support the dynamic activity of a major transit hub, while strategically placed artwork and landscaping provide opportunities for quiet reflection. Public movement remains fluid and intuitive, even in a visually rich interior space.

The four-level environmental sequence offers a clear narrative, guiding visitors through a varied set of experiences, from the mineral-rich depths of the basement to the sunlit openness of the upper floors. These themes effectively use materials, light, and density to signal changes in function, allowing for intuitive navigation without the need for signs. The integrated artworks serve a practical purpose, transforming the interactions with daylight and movement into shared experiences that ground visitors in both time and place.

Transforming a retail environment into a genuine extension of a public park demands significant spatial sophistication. GRAND GREEN OSAKA adeptly addresses this challenge by emphasizing open sightlines, meticulously landscaped edges, and dynamic artworks that interact with natural light. The park exerts a continual presence throughout the interior experience, shaping how spaces are accessed, navigated, and utilized.

Commissioned artworks function as vital human-scale focal points, inviting visitors to pause while facilitating the necessary flow of urban movement. Achieving a balance between operational efficiency and opportunities for unexpected discovery sets a new standard for public quality at an urban gateway.

**Image 1 — Suspended Reflective Canopy** A field of small, reflective leaves hangs above the retail street. Their varied heights and orientations create a light, shifting canopy that responds to movement below and changes in illumination.

**Image 2 — Artwork Detail** Close-up views reveal the leaf-like elements as finely suspended reflective pieces. Their surfaces refract the surrounding architecture, producing a changing pattern of color and light.

**Image 3 — Luminous Concourse Ceiling** Curving bands of vertical light elements sweep across a broad circulation space. This installation reduces the visual scale of the concourse and provides direction through rhythm rather than conventional enclosures.

**Image 4 — Pale Circulation Level** A restrained color palette, planted openings, and layered ceiling lines create an open public route. Escalators and shopfronts remain visible, making vertical and horizontal movement easy to navigate.

**Image 5 — Market Level** Warm pendant lights and darker finishes establish a more concentrated atmosphere. Signage, storefronts, and circulation areas are organized within an exposed ceiling field, giving the level an urban, market-like character.

**Image 6 — Restaurant Frontage and Integrated Artwork** A traditional restaurant frontage sits alongside a sculptural wall piece. The contrast between the crafted timber, textile signage, and contemporary artwork creates a layered cultural identity in the corridor.

**Image 7 — Commercial Podium and Planted Terrace** The exterior view shows retail floors embedded within a larger landscape of trees, terraces, and public pathways. Transparent edges and planted setbacks soften the podium's appearance between the surrounding towers.

**Image 8 — Umekita Park Relationship** The broad lawn, water features, and surrounding architecture illustrate the scale of the park-led development. The commercial zone forms one edge of a continuous urban landscape rather than an isolated destination.

The drawings indicate that the commercial zone is structured around contrasts of compression and release. Level B1 is characterized by a high degree of spatial confinement, featuring darker ceilings, narrower visual fields, and a pronounced sense of enclosure. In contrast, as one ascends to higher floors, the interiors evolve to become increasingly open, brighter, and visually interconnected, thereby rendering vertical circulation as a transformation in spatial condition rather than merely a transition between levels.

On the first and second floors, the principal organizing elements are positioned above the circulation areas instead of along their peripheries. The suspended artwork on the first floor occupies the atrium space, enhancing the visibility of the void, while the curved, illuminated ceiling features on the second floor delineate movement across a significantly larger floor plate. Both elements function as spatial markers, enabling visitors to navigate direction and gauge scale before relying on conventional signage.

Furthermore, the connection with Umekita Park is intricately woven into this hierarchical structure. At the brighter upper levels, extensive glazing, landscaping, and extended sightlines integrate the exterior landscape with the commercial interior. Conversely, Level B1 fosters a denser and more urban ambiance. Consequently, the four levels create a deliberate environmental gradient, employing enclosure, ceiling height, natural light, and visual connectivity to differentiate one segment of the retail experience from another.

The South Commercial Zone of Grand Green Osaka was planned on the premise of an integrated spatial relationship with Umekita Park, one of the largest urban parks in the world. It is designed to function as a new urban gateway that seamlessly connects park, architecture, and commerce, presenting a contemporary model of a park-led commercial environment. By using art and light as mediating elements, expressions of the natural environment are continuously drawn into the interior, gently dissolving the boundary between outdoor and indoor spaces.

In both exterior and interior spaces, artworks that abstract natural elements while refracting and reflecting light serve as the spatial core. These artworks respond to changing external light conditions, allowing the shadows of park vegetation and the rhythms of the outdoor environment to flow smoothly into the interior. To support this effect, the lighting design carefully considers the characteristics of natural and artificial light, preventing excessive interference and enabling the subtle variations of light generated by the artworks to expand calmly throughout the space.

Motifs such as mineral textures, layered greenery, and the movement of wind are interpreted through different approaches on each floor. While ensuring constructability and long-term maintenance, a multi-layered material expression was achieved, enriching spatial experience without compromising operational practicality.

The artworks were developed in close collaboration with artists and craftspeople and are integrated with the interior structural framework, enhancing the quality of spatial experience while contributing to visitor attraction and circulation. In particular, around the entrance areas, circulation patterns and sightlines were carefully analyzed, and layouts were designed to encourage visual permeability and moments of pause, directly linking experiential value to spatial composition.

The site’s direct connection not only to Osaka Station but also to Umekita Park enables a seamless urban flow, creating a new circulation system in which station, park, and commercial functions continuously interact. Over the mid to long term, this structure is expected to influence pedestrian networks and patterns of stay, forming a foundation for broader urban impact.

From a sustainability perspective, planting schemes continuous with the park landscape were introduced to reestablish natural cycles within the urban environment. Selected artworks incorporate reused and recycled materials, embedding environmental considerations throughout the design and construction process. These initiatives aim to balance social and environmental value and represent a tangible and responsible approach to creating a public-oriented urban hub.

Prepared for Merci Magazine × Sky Design Awards 2026