PUBLIC MARKET WITH PERMANENT EXHIBITION AREA AND CANTEEN

ARTICLES

15FEB 2021
# TITLE: PUBLIC MARKET WITH PERMANENT EXHIBITION AREA AND CANTEEN
# STUDENTS: Georgios Lykos
# SUPERVISOR: Nikolaos Skoutelis
# DATE: 2014
# COURSE: Synthesis VII
# SCHOOL / DEPARTMENT: School of Architecture, National Technical University of Crete

This complex was designed for the pregraduate course ‘Synthesis VII.  It was designed to accommodate public marketplaces, a closed marketplace and product showrooms.  The building plan is complemented by shops, offices and two cafes. The given plot is opposite the municipal stadium of Chania, in the southeastern part of the moat, which is mostly used for car parking. The design approach was based on the typology and the morphology of the citys closed Market.  The  intention  was  to  unite  the degraded  section  of  the  moat, which was redesigned, along  with  the  road  but  also  the raised part of the City  Walls.  Independent public market spaces, with the option of isolation and free navigation, energize the lower level.  The road directly feeds the corresponding spaces to the immediately higher level. The last  two  floors  constitute  a  closed  building  with a facade   parallel   to   the  main  street,  which  houses the rest of the building’s uses.  The flow runs from the lower two levels and feeds the building, which, in turn, feeds the cafeteria through the metal bridge and finally the bastion.   

   The building is constructed on the east-west axis. Its composite construction creates wide views to the stadium and the Old Town to the north, unifying the building and the city. The two exterior spaces on the 4th level offer expansion and views to points of interest. The floor plan typology offers free movement, conveying the logic of wandering inside the building.  The light flows through the  facades,  from  the  glass  part  of  the  roof  as  well as from small chimneys,  illuminating the space and the visitors experience.On the ground floor there are 5 open and 5 closed shopping areas as well as two shops. At the street level we find five additional open shop spaces. On the   first  floor  there  is  the  product  display  area, bathrooms  and  storage  areas.  At the highest level we have the administration offices and the restaurant. Each of the two aforementioned areas has its own external expansion space.

The trench level is below the road level, which ranges from - 0. 50m to the east side of the building and reaches – 3.0m 50 meters to the west side.  The moat is about 5.0 m higher than the trench level and it is used for parking and occasionally for outdoor street markets.  The lower level now forms a low square that feeds the building. The slope of the road is taken up  to  the  upper  level and, through the building, the closed market  is  bridged with a bastion through a path that allows us  to observe life in the remodeled moat, to choose whether we  want  to  visit the cafeteria and eventually to a belvedere, which  will  bring  us  down  to  the  level  of the bastion now planted with trees.