City Market

Fresh Fish Showcase.

Project details

• Project Name: City Market
• Client: Comercial Mexicana
• Project Type: Gourmet Supermarket
• Principal Designer/s: Pavlik Design Team
• Design Team: Pavlik Design Team; Architect: Ht Arquitectos, s.a. de c.v. Mexico, D.F.; General Contractor: Grupo VYG, Mexico, D.F.
• Date of completion of project: March, 2006
• Location of site: Mexico
• Site Area: 26422 sq ft

Market Cafe.

Words from the Architect

City Market is one of the first amongst its kind, to expand the typical smaller gourmet shop into a unique, new high-end, contemporary gourmet supermarket, attracting a new type of customer for Commercial Mexicana. The goal was to corner the high-end market, making a lasting impression with the gourmet shopper. For this reason, the design of this space needed to be alluring and captivating, dramatic and create a unique shopping experience.

Fruits & Vegetables.

The concept behind the design was to create a space in which the shopper can experience the tastes, aromas, sights, sounds, and textures of a fine European gourmet market, a unique shopping experience enticing all the senses. With Emphasis placed on gourmet brands and products from around the world, the design needed to enhance quality and freshness much like the unique products. Located in a new shopping mall in a basement parking level, the greatest challenge was creating visibility for the store. The Entrance is made captivating and dramatic by creating a bright open glass facade with a black granite and stainless frame allowing visibility throughout the entire store. Bright alluring lighting grabs your eye and leads you into and around the store.

Meats & Poultry.

Inside the store, the shops within are defined by strong colors, graphics and signage to invite shoppers throughout shops and to reinforce the "market" feel. Shops along the perimeter each have its own independent color palate. Clean, contemporary built in armoire presentations create focal destinations. The fruits and vegetables shop has a bright colorful fresh fruit juice bar, in which everchanging seasonal exotic fruits get juiced. A contemporary wine cellar features daily demonstrations and tastings. A Flexible stage area is in daily use with cooking classes, demonstrations and tastings to create an interactive experience for shoppers. Each Shop also has focal zones displaying the newest "gourmet gadgets" pertinent to each.

Gourmet Kitchen.

A designer "Chocolates Boutique" offers exotic confections from around the world. The Fish and meat shops are designed to enhance the unique daily selection of specially imported from throughout the world. Using complementary colors, textures and lighting such as refreshing ocean tones, wavy textures and ocean patterns at the fresh seafood shop.

Bread Shop.

The warm woods reinforce the residential soft feeling, balancing the cool contemporary stainless steel fixtures and display units.

Colorful Glass mosaics complement the palettes and textures used in each zone. "Wood grain look" porcelain tile in varying shades of light, medium, dark wood tones clearly define circulation as well as focal shoppes.

Market Cafe - Wine Shop.

Mosaic tile back drop abstractly representing a city skyline. As well as the graphics concept and signage. A variety of decorative pendent lighting accents create a softer residential feel within the overall environment. State of the art technology is also used in lighting control as well as digital description and price displays.

Fresh Juice Station - Fruits & Vegetables.

Wide isles with changeable display units provide total flexibility for weekly and seasonal offerings. Highly visible wall and aisle focals display a rotating series of gourmet vendor venues exhibiting different seasonal products within warm residential style armoire and table presentations.

Check out.

To overcome a low ceiling, a series of decorative beams and trellis systems and the focal shops camouflage a profusion of duct work as well as give the overall space and focal shops a sense of human scale.

All these elements create a unique blend of global gourmet experiences within a fresh welcoming, contemporary, environment for gourmet consumers to experience a truly unique shopping experience that entices all their senses.

Credits

• Text: Fernando Castillo
• Photographs: Dana Hoff Photography