THE SERPENT

In the heart of Lithuania, The Serpent, a new E-commerce hub designed by Entropic, reimagines the standard big-box typology of conventional warehouse/retail programming, to create a continuous street of programs, with plazas, green spaces, and public functions. The project consisting of 70.000 Sqm of spaces dedicated for digital shopping pick up zones, and new forms of retail experience.

The challenge was to rethink the suburban shopping typology, to an experience-oriented retail typology. How can we match user experience, complex logistic movement, environmental response, and optimized retail design into a single cohesive project?

The project splits the site into two, with the public program to the front, and a logistic drop-off program to the back. The roof, gently raises and lowers accommodating extra program requirements, whilst elegantly integrating itself into the surrounding landscape. Through short term drop off points the project adapts to future conditions of integrating new forms of autonomous personal transportation and public mobility.

The architectural design reinterprets the standard warehouse section into a new contemporary roof motif, which serves to maximize solar EV gain and allows diffused light into the interior, optimizing the environmental response. A serrated retail promenade allows for every retail unit to maximize shop frontage and visibility. The Serpent connects with the city centre through a bridge, which continues through the project on an upper-level streetscape creating great access to upper level program, until reaching its terminus, in an interior plaza.