What you will find in this text:
- The main aspects of a shopping mall
- The Iran Mall facility
- What is expected from the Iran Mall’s maintenance and facilities professionals?
- Maintenance and asset management at the Iran Mall
The shopping mall – a symbol of American consumerism and suburban life. While Uncle Sam may be home to over 100,000 of them, you might be surprised to learn that the largest shopping mall in the world can be found in...
Iran?!
That’s right, the Iran Mall – found in the northeast of the capital Tehran – is the world’s biggest shopping mall by area and one of the largest commercials, cultural and social projects in the world. Situated next to the Chitgar Lake, the number one biggest mall is set to span a whopping 1.6 million square meters once development is completely finished.
The mall also entered the Guinness Book of Records for the longest continuous pour of concrete, as concrete was poured non-stop for 6 whole days during its construction, which finished in 2018.
But Iran Mall is not just a feat of modern engineering, it also pays homage to traditional Persian architecture and ornamentation.
Did you know? Its traditional bazaar is inspired by a market in the Iranian city of Tabriz, and rooms like the mirror hall and the library showcase the very best of traditional Persian craftsmanship.
Iran Mall’s playful incorporation of both forward-looking and traditional design makes even more sense when you consider that the covered bazaars and marketplaces of Persia can be viewed as the ancient precursors to present-day shopping malls.
As a gigantic hub for retail, entertainment and sport, the Iran Mall pushes the limits of what a shopping mall can offer, providing us with valuable insights into how such a space should be managed.
Let’s take a step back and look...
The main aspects of a shopping mall
So, first of all, what IS a shopping mall? The question seems obvious but over the years the term has come to encompass many different types of shopping centres. While some may house a few shops and serve local communities, mega-malls like the Iran Mall attract consumers from much further afield and provide a whole range of services, likes cinemas or even ice-rinks.
Although a mall is single covered building, it contains many different shops and businesses which to some extent function independently. Nevertheless, malls have to be managed as single properties and with this comes many challenges for the management companies that run them.
What sort of challenges? Aside from the choice of individual shops (known as the tenant mix of the mall) management has to:
- Provide on-site parking facilities;
- Place sign posting;
- Ensure security services.
This allows customers to easily get around (important for a mall as big as Iran) and feel safe and secure, all while benefiting from the range of shops and businesses on offer.
To find out more, let’s take a look at the Iran Mall...
The Iran Mall facility
It’s hard to underestimate the sheer size of the Iran Mall – this is certainly no ordinary shopping mall. Its facilities include:
- A traditional bazaar inspired by the cover markets of Persia, showcasing traditional handicrafts and souvenirs;
- Gardens which break up the space
- A Mirror Hall based on the Hall of Mirrors at the Golestan palace, composed of 38 million pieces of mirror and 126 square meter Persian carpet
- The jewel in crown of the mall is the Jondishapour Library, with its fine wood panelling and collection of over 45,000 volumes of books manuscripts and documents.
Alongside these grandiose rooms and displays, the Iran Mall is home to a vast array of amenities and entertainment spaces:
- A car showroom;
- A luxury hotel with 429 guest rooms;
- A multiplex cinema with 12 IMAX theatres, seating 1,800 spectators;
- When completed, the Mall will also host the largest exhibition centre in the world.
Fun fact: The exhibition centre will comprise an area of 40,000 square metres!
What else could a mall offer? It doesn’t stop there!
The Iran Mall is also known for its incredible sports facilities, with both an Olympic-standard ice-rink for skating and hockey, as well as a bowling alley with 16 lanes.
To top it off, the mall’s sports medicine clinic is world-class, and hopes to attract visitors from all over the globe in a bid to promote sports and medical tourism to the region.
No (s)mall feat: what is expected from the Iran Mall’s maintenance and facilities professionals?
Professionals managing and maintaining the Iran Mall have a lot to contend with. In order to ensure the best customer experience, whether in the luxury hotel or the Persian bazaar, professionals have to be mindful of factors such as security, signage and parking.
Moreover, air-conditioning systems, plumbing and electricals have to be monitored around the clock in order to prevent potential failures, guaranteeing the comfort of the mall’s many visitors.
This wide-ranging and diverse task has to be overseen in an efficient and streamlined manner, something helped along by innovative new technologies, allowing teams to manage all these systems at once.
Maintenance and asset management at the Iran Mall
The sheer size and scale of a project like Iran Mall provides valuable insights to anyone interested in the maintenance and management of multi-purpose buildings, like shopping malls.
Special technologies and software are crucial to ensure that infrastructure such as cleaning, plumbing and air conditioning runs smoothly – while at the same time adhering to sustainability ratings.
Good maintenance management software ensures that all operations are coordinated and under control. This computerised system allows the team to see the bigger picture and put the data into perspective, ultimately resulting in the smooth management of the building.
The Iran Mall is not only a feat of engineering, but also an ongoing and continuous project that tells us much about the maintenance of buildings and assets.
One clear lesson to be learned is that having an all-in-one asset maintenance management solution is a critical component for success in our modern day and age. With so many aspects to keep up with in a building such as the Iran Mall, technology like machine learning and AI is key. Thanks to technology like this, a project as vast as the Iran Mall is able to run smoothly.