“Next stop Namba Station!” the message rings out from the loudspeaker in the train from Osaka Airport to the city centre. The roughly nine-acre site of the former Nangai Stadium is now occupied by one of the most impressive shopping centres in the country, rising to a height of 42 metres and with a floor area of 297,000m2. Good links to the railway and the road systems mean that on a single weekend up to 250,000 people may visit the retail amenities in this green, park-like environment. The shopping facilities hardly differ from those of typical underground shopping malls of international standard. The layout of the development in a series of stepped terraces, however, mediates between the traditional two-storey buildings in the area and a new high-rise block on an adjoining site. The architects sought to create a three--dimensional garden in an urban situation – at the densely developed heart of the city. These hanging gardens provide scope for relaxation, as well as opportunities to cultivate one’s own allotment. The waterfalls, cliffs and trees of the artificial park landscape allow visitors to combine their shopping with an experience of nature. The interior of the project is in the form of a man-made canyon in bands of coloured stone. Following a figure-of-eight course, the shopping route snakes its way in an east-west direction through an artificial oasis, leading visitors past rocks and caverns and over glazed bridges towards the central area. A sequence of spaces, each with a distinguishing water element, forms a path of discovery, culminating at the heart of the development in a grand plaza.