The Fourways Mall expansion now positions this shopping mall located in the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg as one of the largest in the Southern hemisphere. The expansion project, in progress for a little over four years, has added more than 220,000sqm of space across all levels, with the total space available for retail being 182,000sqm, including Fourways View and the previously standalone Game wing, which have now been embraced under the Fourways Mall roof.

The entire project has cost R2.1 billion to complete, supported by roadworks expansions funded by developers Azrapart costing R400 million – massive investment into a vision for the future of Fourways. Having welcomed more than 250 new brands and stores to the mall’s retail mix, Fourways Mall now offers a total of 450 shops and experiences.

Notwithstanding the sheer scale of the project, the infrastructure and the many years of collaboration and partnership to get the project consumer-ready the immense amount of project detailing is noteworthy. In what Hennie Coetzee (Project Lead and Director at Boogertman + Partners) calls 'primarily an interior architecture project' the mall really comes to life once you enter it. The team did extensive research into future retail trends and visited top malls in the UK and the UAE to sense-check their own designs and to ensure that the mall had longevity. Driven by the need for more retail space and the growing demand of the surrounding communities for increased lifestyle and brand offerings the Mall has created a number of key focus areas that ensures that it delivers rewarding experiences.

New methods of way-finding design

The addition of extra wings to the Fourways Mall plan resulted in the shape of a four emerging as the central organizing principle. Four anchor tenants, Game, Woolworths, Checkers and the Food Court are located on the four edges of the four wings with the three floors between creating concourses and display areas with line shops and brand offerings connecting pathways. The navigation and wayfinding system was designed by Seek Design. Through bringing the colour in the parking garage levels into the shopping mall signage systems, and making visible the colour on central lift shafts and escalators including lighting features, consumers can easily identify that a particular court or section is linked to the parking entrance they entered from.

As Brent Lindeque from The Good Things Guy notes in a review, "it got bigger but not harder to navigate."

Public Transport and infrastructure

Over and above the investment in the road infrastructure around the mall, a further innovation of the design is the inclusion within the mall parking design of a dedicated taxi rank for 80 taxis. With car wash facilities and bathrooms designed after consulting with the relevant taxi associations it brings consumers and commuters right into the mall with easy access up one escalator with retail offerings easily accessible.