El Derby City

Ciudad El Derby proposes a mixed-use urban piece in Santiago de Surco, Lima, on a high-value triangular plot between Avenida El Derby, Avenida El Polo and Avenida La Encalada. The brief calls not for a conventional shopping centre but for a fragment of city, bringing together a supermarket, department store, retail, dining, a hotel, offices, housing, a gym and a nursery around a central public space.

The strategy answers a clear question: to optimise the performance of a highly intense site without losing spatial quality. The retail floors relate to the street and to an inner landscaped plaza —the true heart of the project— while the uses above are organised independently to ensure privacy, clear access and operational efficiency.

Analysis of climate, topography, seismic risk and market refines the programme and aims it at an upper-middle-income urban public. The plaza, its organic geometry drawing on the area's equestrian culture, links garden, retail and leisure to generate activity throughout the day.

Formally, the project works the tension between built mass and public void: the high-rise volumes release a recognisable central space and planting acts as urban structure rather than decoration. The result is a contemporary urban centrality that combines profitability, a mix of uses and public-space quality.