berrant
rchitecture Aberrant Architecture

Thanks to the success of the Roaming Market structure we built for Lower Marsh Market in 2013, a year later we were again commissioned by Waterloo Quarter Business Improvement District (BID) to design a set of mobile ‘street furniture’ for Lower Marsh, one of London’s oldest and dearest market streets. The aim was to continue the rejuvenation of the Lower Marsh Market, which was re-launched in 2011, by further animating the street and providing more opportunities for socialising and interaction throughout.

We designed the tables with a plywood top attached to a steel frame, and a side panel into which the logo of the market was lasercut. To ensure the furniture could easily be moved around, stored, and re-configured depending on the requirements of a variety of different events and activities, each standalone table had wheels and a built-in platform capable of holding four of the stools for storage and easy transportation. The stools were made from reused chicken feed containers in a reference back to the poultry sign on our original Roaming Market structure.

True to our signature style, we wanted our design to give the street a pop of colour, so we used a simple and welcoming bright blue palette across all six sets of furniture. We decorated the tops of the tables and stools with hand-painted patterns and, to highlight and reflect the tight-knit community and the history of the area, we further embellished these with quotes from some prominent figures in the market’s colourful history. These were selected from Conversations in Lower Marsh, an art project in which shopkeepers and stallholders from the street were interviewed about their decades of trading there.

The furniture was commissioned and delivered as part of Waterloo Quarter’s ‘Portas Pilot’ project for Lower Marsh and The Cut, and was supported by the Mayor of London and delivered by Waterloo Quarter BID in collaboration with the London Borough of Lambeth.