Seven Dials Market

The scheme was designed to respond to both the historic built fabric and the more modern architectural additions of a former banana warehouse in London’s historic Covent Garden. It is this inherited, adapted and celebrated and found approach that all of London's best food and cultural locations have and something that was central to Seven Dials Market. The original brick vaults, the building’s collection of cast iron and steel columns and the mixed and scattered floor finishes and levels form a tapestry into which new, modern additions were placed. Bespoke cast terrazzo counters sit on original pitch pine floorboards. New crisp Douglas fir balustrading hangs from the existing rough cut concrete slab edge. The design made use of natural timber, plywood and strawboard (for the acoustic linings) with simple cast counters to create modern kitchens and cafes as insertions within the context of the listed building. The modern insertions have been carefully designed to conceal the complex services required for multiple kitchens and uses and to reveal to the full the impressive listed warehouse. Cucumber Alley reinstates a bustling public colonnade between Earlham Street and Short Gardens, now enlivened with fresh produce, flowers, bakery and cheese. A new performing arts stage sits at the centre of the main dining atrium. The design incorporates a Rothenburg water disposal system so that all wet waste is stored on site in a large stainless steel tank. It is pumped out every four weeks to be taken to an anaerobic digester to be turned in to electricity reducing smells and contributing to the green electricity. The client, KERB, has extended their operation to include a training facility to mentor new chefs by providing training on how to set up, operate and run a market stall. This is part of what KERB term their ‘incubator ‘ seeing this as a way of getting young entrepreneurs started without having to invest a huge amount of money or take on too much risk at the start of their careers. The scheme has reintroduced food back into the warehouse that was once a storage facility serving the original Covent Garden Market. Open from 8.00am to 23.00 the building is now accessible for 15 hours of the day and 364 days of the year providing a large new venue to eat drink and wander.