DEPTFORD SUITCASE MARKET

The Deptford Suitcase Market aims to take advantage of creating informal trading along a newly proposed access route to Deptford Station. It aims to add informality to the current trading experience of Deptford market, enabling traders to rent an allotted trading area at an hourly rate. The market offers an undercover exterior space, for traders to pitch, public convenience for traders as well as the public, a ticket office (the first point of contact for suitcase traders) and an inclusive tea room, acting as a forum for buyers and sellers. The add hoc aesthetic is a reflection of the existing conditions within the Deptford area.

INTERACTION

Taking my own experience of trying to trade at Deptford Market, I wanted to create an informal, casual place to trade. Enabling people who would otherwise not be able to sell goods, a space to trade their items, suggesting the most practical way to do this is from a suitcase. The architecture seeks to build on the catalyst that is the Deptford X project, projecting the existing cafe as a tea room forum, an inclusive place for people to discuss or publicize market happenings.

MATERIAL

Creating a robust, practical environment that complemented the existing Deptford aesthetic was the brief for materiality. Concrete is used for ground and trading surfaces, a distinction will be made between the two using different finishes for the differing surfaces. Corten steel frames hold a composite steel/polycarbonate roof, the underside of which softens the architecture by using a William Morris print, a nod to Deptford’s past. The architecture acts to create a new aesthetic within the area however also highlighting Deptford’s own existing materiality.

BRIEF

(A continuation of semester 1)

To create an independent system that rationalises and revalues the current market conditions, to act as a mediator between buyer and seller, as well as enabling a new programme of informal economies based around the act of the suitcase trading. Informal trading contained around existing infrastructures along route one, encouraging an ad hoc co-existence of static and transitional economies operating at different scales leading to the stable and progressive expansion of the Deptford market, filling a void left by the decline of dockland work, Deptford previously staple trade. Over time this expansion will lead to a need for an architecture that will operate as the administrative market hub, point of contact for both buyer and seller enquiries and support both buyer and seller needs.

Potential Spaces;

Authoritative Administration Office/ Daily Plot Allocation Office/ Suitcase Trading Areas/ Storage/ WCs

URBANISM

INTERVENTION

A network of clothes rails adaptable to the needs of the market traders.
Image01; Intervention/Network Layouts

TRADING

Suitcase Trader
Past Locations; Deptford Market-FAILED
Future Locations; Oxford Castle Market, Gloucester Green, Brick Lane, Deptford Market

Image02; Suitcase [Deptford]/ Suitcase Contents

MANIFESTO

Good architecture has a definite reflection of the world in which it was created. Architects are both slaves to society, and masters of society. As architects we must use the knowledge gained from the past to respond and react to the cultural and economic shifts in the current social context.

Image1: Prototype 04/Template