Hasta La Ideas

Shimmering panels of stainless steel create the appearance of a rippling lake above the heads of shoppers at a supermarket in Moscow.

UK architects Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands designed the food hall and a surrounding mezzanine of restaurants and bars on the upper floors of a seven-storey department store.

The stainless steel panels were beaten then polished before being mounted onto the ceiling, which is visible from retail floors below.

The roof is supported by chunky white columns, which are interspersed between the fresh food counters that fill the hall.

The overlooking mezzanine provides two private restaurants, a 16 metre-long bar and outdoor terraces that overlook the surrounding city.

Other popular markets on Dezeen include a Shanghai supermarket with swooping lighting tracks on the ceiling and an Istanbul fish market covered by a concrete and steel canopy – see all our stories about markets here.

Photography is by Chris Gascoigne.

The following details are from the architects:

Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands creates landmark luxury food destination in Moscow

International architecture studio Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands has completed a luxury food retail and restaurant space at Tsvetnoy Central Market, Moscow, to rival leading international retail stores. Located on Tsvetnoy Boulevard and adjacent to Old Moscow Circus, the 3,930m² (42,300sq.ft) scheme at the new high-end department store features striking, beaten stainless steel interiors.

Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands’ design for developer RGI International is the practice’s second collaborative project in Europe with specialist consultants Ford McDonald, having previously completed the acclaimed La Rinascente food hall in Milan. It draws on the practice’s expertise in luxury food retail schemes, including a 10 year collaboration with Harvey Nichols involving its stores in London, Manchester and Edinburgh, as well as the landmark restaurant at London’s OXO Tower Wharf.

Paul Sandilands, Director at Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, said, “Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands’ design for the food emporium at Tsvetnoy Central Market echos the site’s rich history as the location of Moscow’s famous 19th century flower market. With our previous experience in retail and hospitality design, we created a reflective stainless steel interior to capture the colour, buzz and activity in the space. This creates a sense of drama, which shimmers down to the lower retail levels, drawing visitors up through the building. Tsvetnoy Central Market is set to become Moscow’s ultimate food destination.”

Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands’ scheme occupies the upper floors of the seven storey department store and is centred around a 1,700m² (18,300sq.ft) delicatessen food hall. Located above, a large-scale mezzanine level houses a 16m long bar, two private dining restaurants and destination outdoor terraces with stunning views across the Moscow skyline.

With floor-to-ceiling windows throughout, Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands has harnessed full design control over the only ‘editable’ plane within the space – the ceiling – to create a strong identity for the building. The suspended internal ceiling is comprised of 2,600 components made from highly-polished beaten stainless steel. This technically innovative feature addresses the common issue of underperformance on the upper floors of department stores, by creating a lively and colourful destination at the top to entice customers upwards through the building.

Visible from the ground floor entrance of the department store through a large full-height atrium, the ceiling provides visitors with a glimpse of the colourful produce and activities within the 7m high food hall above. Sitting inside the external envelope, the reflective surfaces wrap and unify the two food retail floors, creating movement through abstract shifting patterns of colour, which make reference to the site’s history as a flower marketplace as well as the architectural innovation and geometry of the new building, designed by Moscow-based architectural studio Project Meganom.

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Hugely impressed by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands’ stainless steel design, the client also drew the surface down to the lower levels of the department store, including the entrance and central atrium spaces. This mirrored edging unifies the retail floors, driving footfall and sales throughout the store.

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Mahipat Singh at Tsvetnoy Central Market said, “We are very excited by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands’ work at Tsvetnoy Central Market, which provides the store with a unique visual identity and atmosphere. I am certain that the market will become an integral part of our customers’ lifestyles as it has revolutionised food shopping in the city, embodying the modern spirit of Moscow. Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands’ expertise has been a crucial element in establishing Tsvetnoy Central Market as a rival to the world’s leading department stores in New York, London, Paris, Milan and Hong Kong.”

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The food hall is flanked by six over-the-counter fresh food concessions, including a European delicatessen, a bakery and patisserie, an Asian sushi bar, fish and poultry counters, and a wine shop. The market also retails a wide range of goods including fresh fruits and vegetables, dry groceries, frozen food and flowers. To ensure that the acoustics from the busy market hall would not reverberate into the open private dining areas above, Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands worked with acoustic consultant, Cole Jarman.

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Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands has used feature ceilings on a number of retail schemes as a device to entice customers store wide. This approach was applied to the highly successful restaurant, bar and brasserie for Harvey Nichols at Oxo Tower Wharf, London, which features a cantilevered aerofoil roof with rotating coloured louvre blades that swivel to allow light and acoustic variations. At the La Rinascente food hall in Milan, the practice designed a glowing three-dimensional ceiling, which unified the food concessions and restaurants on the top floor
of the historic department store.

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Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands’ architectural approach to the client’s brief, utilising space, light and technology to its maximum as opposed to an interior design solution, has resulted in a sophisticated and accessible experience for visitors to Tsvetnoy Central Market.

See also:

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Lotus Fresh by Head Architecture	Besiktas Fish Market by GAD	Barceloneta Market by MiAS Architects

Curving metal forms frame the glass facade of this market hall in Barcelona by Spanish firm MiAS Architects.

Wrapping around a bomb-damaged nineteenth century structure, the suspended metal shapes give the Barceloneta Market a new profile.

Containing restaurants and shops, the market faces onto a large public square.

More stories about markets on Dezeen »

Photography is by Adrià Goula.

The following text is from the architects:

The Market in a Neighbourhood called l’Òstia

When I was a student at the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB), Barceloneta was the subject of much conversation. Restaurants on the beach which later disappeared… narrow streets, cramped flats, the clothes hanging out on the balconies, the shops, the artisans’ workshops… and its people, who talked, and still talk, fast and loud.

The project meant a chance to go back to the neighbourhood in an interested manner; it was no longer a trip down there for fun, to discover its people, its bars, its smell… but rather a survey of the place with the object of identifying what would enable us to reveal its qualities and to describe it accurately for the purposes of a project.

An attempt, ultimately, to explain a reality, to offer a new and fuller meaning to an architectural project, beyond resolving a programme or commission.

As early as the competition stage we did a collage with some of César Manrique’s fantastic fish, drawings for children we hoped might embody and express the joy of these people: their liveliness, their energy, their enthusiasm in the face of frequent hardship.

In fact the Market has always been an element of social cohesion in the neighbourhood, a landmark, sometimes almost secret and visible only to its inhabitants.

This condition of density that the market has in relation to the city should be a condition of the project, so that the building and its immediate surroundings actually become a clear point of reference in this corner of the city of Barcelona.

It is surprising to see now the photos we made of the market during construction, when the pieces, the bones, of this huge animal were being carried through the streets to their final place. 
This animal is now a prisoner in a military-imposed town plan, this neighbourhood, with no chance of escape.

I think it’s nice to think of the memory of these very streets of each of these transported parts; each neighbour, witness alike to the construction, or at least some fragment of the market. 
And it is surprising even now, to recall that building process, which we shared with neighbours, with workers… the final construction done in parts, little pieces of a greater reality; the assembly of these pieces, these fragments, previously cut up in the factory, to facilitate transport, and their passage through the narrow streets to the space allocated for the market.

The market seeks to form part of the neighbourhood, its urban fabric, and is redirected toward the squares front and rear – formerly no square existed, and the bays that made up the market crossed.

The new metal figures create new market spaces, not touching the ground, but suspended from the old structure, not a in real manner, since the two structures, the old and new, never really overlap structurally, rather they do so in a false equilibrium.

The imprisoned, tamed building writhes within this space, a certain violence in its rebuilt form, acquiring a reality that lies between the memory of its former self and its new ambition. It uncurls, curls back up, and offers a succession of new spaces to discover.

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I think we have succeeded in making the market belong to the neighbourhood again naturally: from inside, the windows of neighbouring buildings overlay our enclosure, and vice versa. It is a market that can be understood as an extension of the city, of the neighbourhood, of its shops, of its bars, with a day-to-day continuity. And it can be crossed as one does a pedestrian crossing, hardly looking from side to side. Halls, restaurants, shops, spaces of and for the neighbourhood, ultimately… and a sense of necessarily belonging to a place, of identifying with it, and participating in its energy.

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I would like the building to be, beyond its market, a part of the neighbourhood’s impudence, to match the gutsy character of this neighbourhood ― so special, so vital ― of Barcelona that they call, for some reason, l’Òstia.

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Abu Dhabi Central Market by Foster + Partners	Barceló Temporary Market by Nieto Sobejano	Besiktas Fish Market by GAD

Compete to reinvent a shipping container for Brooklyn’s new community market

Located in the heart of downtown Brooklyn’s Fulton Street mall, the upcoming Dekalb Market will be home to a food market and incubator farm, restaurants, work-sell shops, a performance venue and more. One of the spaces dreamed up to enclose all these attractions is a re-imagined shipping container, which Dekalb Market developer Urban Space is challenging you to design. The “Not Just A Container” competition tasks the creative community with coming up with an innovative idea for the structure, with the winner receiving six months free rent and $3,000 for design and construction, as well as one year memberships to 3rd Ward and the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.

Beginning today, the contest spans one month and I’m looking forward to checking out the designs as one of judges on the panel. Suggestions for use range from art installation to sports venues, but entrants are free to stretch their imagination while keeping to key criteria like design quality, sustainability, community impact and entrepreneurship. Designs must also conform to the size limitations for an ISO steel shipping container (8′ x 20′ x 9.5′).

For a full list of rules and regulations, visit the Not Just a Container website.

Architects GAD of New York, Istanbul and Bodrum have completed a fish market in Istanbul covered by a concrete and steel canopy. (more…)