Name of Project: SM City Baguio (2000)
Location: Baguio City

SM City Baguio is a green mall designed to harmonize with nature. The area where most of the existing trees is located was preserved, and affected trees were replenished by providing a sky garden located at the top most level of the building, to further contribute to the greening of Mt. Sto. Tomas. Green garage screens, planters on balconies and potted plants and trees were introduced within the building and its premises.

The strategic design also maximizes the use of natural light, allowing sunlight to penetrate the building, thus reducing energy consumption and nurtures the vegetation located within the building. The building permits cold air to enter and circulate, maximizing the cool Cordillera mountain breeze throughout the general mall area, thus using lower energy consumption.

Water catchment tank was intergraded in the design to hold and retain rainwater to avoid overloading the city drainage system.

During a downpour, rainwater falls on the mall’s roof, then passes through roof gutters, downspouts, through SM’s filtration system, then straight to the tank. This means floodwater is redirected away from surrounding communities into a reservoir, helping ease possible flash floods and landslides and turn this water as recycled for flushing, cleaning washing, irrigation of plant and fire suppression. SM Baguio’s underground catchment tank can hold up to 6,900 cubic meters, or 6.9M liters, of rainwater and the past great help to a place like Baguio where water is scarce.