Building facade. Image Courtesy of FON STUDIO
- Interiors Designers: FON STUDIO
- Location: Xi Xing Long Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing, China
- Design Team: Boan Jin, Hongzhen Li, Shuanghua Luo
- Client: Breeze Market
- Area: 240.0 m2
- Project Year: 2018
Building facade. Image Courtesy of FON STUDIO
Text description provided by the architects. It is said that the market is a placebo for urban life. Green vegetables, red and green fruits, fresh meat and cooked food are placed on the stall, people can walk around and enjoy it. If they feel comfortable, they will talk to various businesses and bargain in order to get some delicious ingredients for the daily meals.
Axon
In this summer, Fon Studio was commissioned by the Breeze Market to design a traditional building in the Qianmen Xinglong District. The owners of market are the ones who love food and food market, the goal is not to duplicate the traditional market space, but to peruse high-quality ingredients and food events and to create an interesting venue for local residents and visitors from all over the world.
Spatial combination. Image Courtesy of FON STUDIO
The building is originally composed by two similar volumes built in different periods, and also close to local residential community. For a composite market, the most crucial thing is the combination of various selling formats, also the organization of flow is directly related to people’s shopping experience. Back to the starting point of design, in order to integrate the existing horizontal space of the facade, two white volumes are used to connect the building. This intervention is extended to the interior and becomes to be well-proportioned display shelves. Compared with the original quaint of the block, the newly-renovated space, like its name “breeze”, brings a little ease and warmth to the place.
Different combination of shelves. Image Courtesy of FON STUDIO
Different combination of shelves. Image Courtesy of FON STUDIO
To achieve a rich space and relaxed atmosphere, the arrangement of first floor is combination of open and semi-open, with enough movable shelves to break the conventional layout of traditional market and let the guests experience more when shopping. In this way, the attributes of the complex space are also magnified. In addition to the daily status, the market is planned to hold exhibitions and public events about food and lifestyle in the future.
Extended white volume and movable shelves. Image Courtesy of FON STUDIO
Corridor. Image Courtesy of FON STUDIO
On the south part beside the window, a translucent dark staircase leads to the food event area on the second floor. Different from the rich layout of the ground floor, there are clear space arrangement, more open windows combined with traditional wood structure, so that the market offers many possibilities for interesting connection with the first selling floor. The open kitchen, variable dining tables and chairs, and shelves are considered for birthday parties, group events, gourmet classes and so on.
Stairs connected with window frame. Image Courtesy of FON STUDIO
Fresh ingredients can be purchased at each booth, and then brought to the open kitchen to cook a variety of dishes for friends and family, so that the heat and fragrance of the food serve as the “background” of the space. As an extension of the market culture, people’s independent activities and open sales happen here at the same time, “cooking smoke” is also helpful for varies scenes from the dialogue between old and new in this house.
Food event space. Image Courtesy of FON STUDIO
Indoor lighting under the night. Image Courtesy of FON STUDIO