Richmond’s Table

Richmond’s Table is a market hall that assembles small businesses and vendor kitchens into a public stomping ground for Richmond’s local talent and food. This project ponders the architecture of ‘the local’ and the essence of its character; seeking to venerate existing elements and reveal the latent conditions that are already embedded in ‘place’. Employing purposeful and intentional architectural interventions to reclaim under-utilised space and collect a spatial armature for local business; this project seeks to reinforce the local scale through an architecture of collectivism. To sustain small family businesses and neighbourhood entrepreneurs by means of shared infrastructure and resources. To elevate ‘the local’ through an economy of scale, allowing it to punch above its weight and compete as a viable system for future food. Richmond’s Table empowers local systems of production, preparation, distribution, and consumption, closing the gap between farm and table. It uses the local food experience to ponder larger systems of sustainable food. The humble plate of Jill and Judy’s handmade koftas represents something far greater than the individual food experience but is also the next step in the delivery of a much larger food manifesto.

This project juxtaposes the mechanics of a hyper-local food market in an attempt to describe the entire food industry. Mobilising modest local business with entirely immodest ambitions, Richmond’s Table reconsiders the model of the current food system and proposes a robust alternative rooted in locally sourced authenticity and honesty.