"Psaras"(The Fisherman)

Thessaloniki, Greece

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"Psaras"(The Fisherman)

Thessaloniki, Greece

Firm

T&T ARCHITECTS

Type

Commercial › Retail

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2015

SIZE

300,000 sqft - 500,000 sqft

BUDGET

$10K - 50K

The store "Psaras" is a small fish shop in a traditional open-air food market (Bazaar) in the center of Thessaloniki.
The functional requirements of the store were relatively simple; we organized the store's ground layout by dividing it into two sections: the first one extends towards the store’s limits, reaches out onto the pavement parallel to the road and contains the counters to expose the fresh fish to the public. The windows face out towards the sidewalk for this purpose as well (to attract passers-by) – a characteristic common of flea market booths. The section inside the store contains the freezers for the frozen fish, shelves for canned goods and fish preserves, and the cashier. Through two small openings in the wall the fresh fish can be transported in a second, independent kitchen and storage room in order to be washed and made ready for sale.
We chose to place two-meter high wall panels made of handmade cement tiles in an old and classic design resembling fish scales along the interior in order to integrate the elements of the equipment (refrigerators and counters) into an homogenous pattern and in an attempt to convey a feel of the past, dominant in the atmosphere of the traditional market surrounding the store itself. For the colors of the tiles we have chosen to blend the dark blue and gray tones of the sea with ochre, salmon and pink, echoingthe colors of mullet, salmon and shrimp. While attempting to organize the functional settlement of the store, we wanted our design to be able to both "entertain" customers, visitors and pedestrians and to invite them in for a surprise. The empty wall surfaces above the tile offered us the opportunity and the freedom to do that; we saw it as a canvas on which to tell a story. We created a dark grey-green “floor” which appeared to be“animated" by a school of colorful metallic fishswimming by. This effectively creates a sort of moving frieze, conveying to the viewers a sense of the seabed, the ocean depths and the world of fish.
This same school of fish appears somewhere else as well; it is painted on the store's exterior solid metal blinds (roller shutters), blending in beautifully among the diverse and exuberant graffiti which already decorates the shop walls and shutters of the old surrounding market buildings.