The design of a large scale, retail store for IKEA, situated on an existing industrial Pirelli cable site in the heart of the Southampton city centre, maximises the site's development potential by reinventing the traditional IKEA store format and associated car parking within a multi level design. The key to the development success is the creation of an efficient spatial diagram which clearly separates the store, its circulation and customer car parking. The building provides a link between the existing town centre and proposed harbour regeneration by allowing a major pedestrian route to cross the site. Delivered within a twelve month construction programme the store has already come to symbolise the city's redevelopment ambition to make Southampton city the major retail destination in the south of England. The development is connected to the Southampton district energy scheme also known as the Southampton Geothermal Heating Company (SGHC), which is the largest community heating (and cooling)networks in the UK. The scheme utilises geothermal energy from a deep aquifer, and combined heat and power (CHP) plant, to provide carbon savings of at least 11,000 tonnes per year. Rainwater collection from the roof is stored below ground in a 60,000 ltr storage tank, for use to flush all store WCs, water plants and landscaping. This is predicted to save 3,240 m3 water per annum. Sustainability targets are achieved through the following: -Heating and cooling through SGHC via 1 mile deep borehole & CHP -SGHC will save 192te of carbon for cooling and 106te for heating -Rainwater harvesting for toilets & irrigation saving 3,240m2 of water/yr -Over 500 new permanent jobs created in store within the first year -?50m/year expenditure encouraging growth in the local economy -97% support for the scheme from those attending public consultation.