Case Studies: Market Architecture and the Specificity of Product

products on the circulation route. This standard does not facilitate the possible expansion of product display. The standard sizing of stall built by Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA) is 2 x 2 meters with a minimum infrastructure of the market. Secondly, these infrastructures also act as a device of control which can be seen in the case studies both historically and contemporarily. The first archetypal market, Nang Loeng market, was built by the government of Siam in order to clear out trading activities from the street and usher in a new, modernised urban quality in the mid nineteenth century. Nowadays, the orderliness and cleanliness of the urban scene is still an issue. The municipality often consider the street vendors in downtown Bangkok to be an urban nuisance25, and advocate policies to relocate these vendors away from their usual location. Standardisation of the market hall takes a role to govern and control over certain activities which are not considered to be hygienic and orderly. The provision of ventilation, daylight and drainage is a system of hygienic control that supports the cleaning activities. It is also stated in the Bangkok Local Ordinance of Marketplace that the market hall needs to be cleaned every day26 . In this regulation, the distance between the products and the floor is crucial, and prohibited at less than 60 centimetres. The design of the stall counter aims to govern the bodies of both vendors and buyers, by stipulating that people need to stand while they are buying and selling. This is opposed to the usual manner of street trading in which products lie on the floor. It is useful to note the resistance of some vendors in the Tewarach market who, when forced to comply with the use of a counter, use that counter as a floor: sitting on it to prepare their produce for the next working day. On the one hand, the generic plan, an evenly provided infrastructure in the market hall, allows the possibility of change by the users. On the other hand, the activities that take place inside the market, which include the daily routine of the vendors, consumer behaviour and logistic protocol, is far from generic. I would argue that, although the current market standard and regulation are designed to regulate and control the activities taking place inside, they ignore what is precisely happening in the space every day. The generic plan is an issue here, in that it does not take into consideration the requirement of each vendor. It ignores the discrepancy between different type of product: fresh products and dry products, morning vendors and evening vendors, raw food and cooked food, circulation of vehicle and pedestrian. This thesis takes into account these various critical moments and rethinks an alternative standard model that would empower the market users.

Fig. 13

Case Studies: Market Architecture and the Specificity of Product

Perceiving an architecture of the market hall as a machine that organises trading activities helps us understand its purpose, and what should be projected toward an alternative model as a counter argument of the present model. However, the case studies are not a nostalgic recall of market as opposed to current prevailing modern

25 Bhowmik, Sharit K., Street Vendors in Asia: A Review, Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 40, No. 22/23, (2005), p. 256

26 Bangkok Local Ordinance of Marketplace, 2008 <http://web. krisdika.go.th/data/law/ law2/%A136/%A136-2b2551-a0001.htm>p.8

27 Steel, Caloryn, Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives (Random House UK, 2008) p.103 28 In Paris, Les Halles was demolished in 1971 and moved to Rungis Wholesale market, which still operates now. In London, the run down market hall was reconceptualised and renovated to establish a new middle-class model of market as tourist attraction.

29 Masterplan, A global vision of development <https://www.abattoir.be/ en/masterplan> [accessed 30 Jun 19] trade chain supermarket, but a more strategic spatial organisation that facilitates the trading activities. This raises the question of what could remain generic, and in what way the specificity could be surfaced. Four cases of urban market around the world were selected to see how the design of each project manages and organises the process of activities that differ according to the product, including fruit, vegetables, livestock, fisheries, dry products, and cooked food, and the different moments of logistic where the products enter and leave the market.

Foodmet Abattoir, Brussels

Europe became a major consumer of agricultural produce in the 17th century by trading and cultivating all over the entire world. This coincides with a rich history of market hall architecture, including renowned art nouveau style glass houses built with steel structures such as Covent Garden or Borough Market in London, or Les Halles market in Paris. The major reason for the construction of a market hall is to organise the urban market which used to operate in the city square27. It is no coincidence that the increased amount of supermarkets, since the first supermarkets started their business in the beginning of 1950s, has had a great impact on the obsolescence of traditional market in urban European cities28 . The Foodmet Abattoir in Brussels was initiated by the city of Brussels in 2009 and completed in 2015. It is situated within the old slaughterhouse site in an immigrant neighbourhood. The Foodmet consists of a food shop, restaurants, urban farming and (purposing) Community Land Trust housing. The food department contains 45 shops with 17 butchery stalls and a mix of stalls that house fruit, vegetables and other products29. It is an extension to the existing weekend market, that aims to provide facilities for food vendors who already open their shop in the open-air market, including cold storage that separates meat and vegetables. In this regard, the livestock section needs a certain processing area: a meat workshop that is well connected to the logistic area. In comparison, the vegetable and fruit section, which requires less technical support, would need only a large open space for preparation. The provision of cold storage is crucial here, because it helps support the contemporary model of food distribution through digital platforms (which rose dramatically during Covid 19). As people move to shopping online, the facilities that support the logistic of food products is crucial to the nature of it business. Another good practice of this market is the subsidy of rental price by the municipality. This keeps the rental price low and maintains current vendors in the site. In term of architectural design approach, the segregation of livestock stall, fruit stall, and restaurant help organise similar activities and avoid interruption between each other. The market consists of two large halls surrounded in the periphery by small shops. Each hall is divided into two major zones: namely, a highly technical area supported by a narrow span structure and a large flexible hall covered by a wide span structure that is supported by precast concrete. The livestock shop which connects to the meat processing workshop

Foodmet abattoir ORG Permanent Modernity Brussel

Meat Store and Workshop Foodmet abattoir ORG Permanent Modernity Brussel N 5m 10m

10m Functions

Meat Storage Vegetable Storage Vegetable / Fruit Store N 5m 10m

Restaurant

Solid Flow Logistics Staff and Vendors Circulation

Customers Restaurant Staff

Fig. 15, 16 is separate from the fruit and vegetables vendors. This helps avoid disturbance between vendors: for instance, when livestock vendors wash the floor, the fruit vendors, who do not need a heavy duty cleaning procedure, are not disturbed. Another strategy to avoid disturbance between various groups of users is the split between logistic circulation which is used by vehicles and the pedestrian walkway. This helps prevent cross circulation and allows a more friendly approach for customers walking in from the flea market outside through the two major entrances. Throughout all the cases, the dissimilarity of activities between wet area and dry area are organised through the composition of a row of shops and open hall that orient in a different shape. In Shengli market, the aquatic shops are located in a separate building as this type of shop would have a different process of cleaning by washing the floor with an excessive amount of water. This also helps prevents smell and humidity from aquatic products spreading into the main hall. All the cases succeed in preventing potential interruptions between different types of activity. The composition of two distinct structures, narrow span which represents a rigid frame and wide span that represents a more flexible space, could potentially allow other activities to happen when the market is not in operation. In the case of Foodmet Abattoir, the market is only used for more or less half of the week (mornings from Thursday to Sunday), which opens up the possibility of other uses by the community. However, some elements in the building such as non-movable counters reduce the possibility that the space can be appropriated. The design project recognises this possibility and reconsiders the balance between what needs to be provided and what could be changed. The design of the market hall uses the strategy to divide space into two major zones: a rigid space that houses small shops, and a more flexible space that would allow other activities to happen. Stall design is the protagonist in achieving such a balance, by limiting the minimum provision of infrastructure that would be used by each type of vendors and leaving the space to be appropriated by the users: either the vendors themselves when the market is open or other possible users in the community. This balance between a rigid and flexible structure is also conform to the counterargument of generic market. The provision of infrastructure and the layout of each stall could be kept generic. While the specific concern of possible disturbance between wet area, and dry area, raw food and cooked food, food products and non-food products could be organised by zoning and grouping each type of stall together and placing them strategically to avoid collisions and interruptions.

Baltic Station Market KOKO Architect Tallinn Estonia

50 m

Foodmet abattoir ORG Permanent Modernity Brussel, Belgium Shengli Market LUO Architect Puyang, China

50 m

Meat Store and Workshop Meat Storage Vegetable / Fruit Store Vegetable Storage Fisheries and Seafood Store Restaurant Dry Products

Baltic Station Market KOKO Architect Tallinn Estonia

Foodmet abattoir ORG Permanent Modernity Brussel, Belgium Shengli Market LUO Architect Puyang, China