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Pallazo Semper: Housing on Ridley Road Market, Hackney

Part 2 Project 2019
Joseph Murray
Kingston University Kingston | UK
This project is situated at the heart of Ridley Road Market in Dalston Kingsland, an area under real threat of development that is insensitive to the diverse cultural characteristics of the market. It looks to the robust architecture of the Palazzi of Naples as an example of how a building facade can absorb the toughness of everyday life. The tectonic and stereotomic theories of Gottfried Semper’s ‘Four Elements of Architecture’ are referenced to gain an understanding of building and façade composition in relationship to a ‘hung façade’.

At a site at the quieter, eastern end of Ridley Road Market this project proposes a vaulted canopy providing a deep dramatic shelter for the street market and a threshold to the gardens beyond, coming to ground in three tree trunk like feet. The body of the cast, stereotomic structure holds a public room overlooking the market and a terrace above. Perched unnervingly at the edge of this base is a tower of pre-cast concrete panels. Their fine relief invokes perspectival illusion and layering to create a delicate volume like an alabaster release. In both form and tectonic the project proposes a set of dualities addressing different scale and types of urban experience.


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2019
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