I'm currently working in a project of a shopping centre (common areas + tenant areas) pursuing LEED certification (Core&Shell).

This shopping center mall is an open-mall type (i.e., outdoor and without HVAC system) with some canopies and shading devices covering roughly 50% of the mall area. This type of mall design has evident environmental advantages against a typical enclosed shopping center mall, namely in what respects energy use, much lower in an open-mall (only lighting) than in a conventional enclosed mall (lighting, climatization and ventilation).

If we model the baseline building mall as an outdoor area, the open-mall center is deeply penalized under EA.P2 and EA.C1 because mall is the only relevant core & shell zone where energy savings can be achieved. As this is a core & shell, shops must be modeled equally in the proposed and the baseline buildings. This does not seem to be fair: as open-air mall, much less energy intensive, being penalized under energy efficiency related LEED credits…

Given this, is it reasonable to model the mal in the baseline building as an enclosed mall ?