A new building will shortly be constructed next to Taiwan’s Touqian River, a combination of a market and food hall with cultural spaces within the northern Taiwanese city of Zhubei. With its stack of open, flexible floors that can adapt to changing demands, the building will act as an urban condenser, and is expected to be the next step in the evolution of the shopping market. This future-focused vision is reflected in its name: Market Cube. Rotterdam-based architectural firm MVRDV will design the new Market Cube building.

© MVRDV

Zhubei, about 50 miles south of Taipei by car, is one of Taiwan’s fastest-growing cities. Driven largely by the city’s proximity to Silicon Valley-like Hsinchu Science Park, the city attracts masses of young professionals, many with young families.

Driven by Zheng Chaofang, the city’s mayor, Zhubei City Office imagined a market building that could provide both an amenity and popular destination for the city’s increasingly affluent population. The project was planned for a prominent location alongside Touqian River, at the point where a major bridge connects Zhubei to Hsinchu.

MVRDV and its Taipei-based co-architect EKUO studied the history of market typologies, from roadside vegetable trucks and market squares to the supermarkets and food courts of today, uncovering a relationship between the increasing efficiency and convenience offered by modern business methods and the multifunctional social qualities that characterized Taiwanese street markets in the past.

© MVRDV

Market Cube, known locally as Riverbank 1, will take a new approach within this trend, providing a platform for a traditional market and combining it with gastronomy as well as social and leisure functions.

A stack of open-plan floors will host markets, food courts, day care and a children’s playground, exhibition and performance spaces, and a rooftop with an agricultural showcase and pavilions for activities. Layered systems of color-coded lighting, signage and interactive media are integrated to guide visitors through its varied spaces. Each level will be distinguished by a unique color palette, while LED screens and neon installations will enhance legibility. The translucent panels surrounding exterior escalators allow glimpses of people in motion, transforming circulation into a form of public theater.

The building’s wide exterior terraces will be accessed by two sets of escalators that snake their way up the building’s exterior, allowing each level to be opened or closed independently.

Thanks to its simplicity and flexibility, the building will easily adapt to the unpredictable changes of the coming decades, extending its lifespan and avoiding costly and unsustainable alterations to the structure for as long as possible.

© MVRDV

For the market and food court levels, a catalogue of stalls will be designed, from simple traditional stalls to kiosks with built-in seating, allowing for a wide variety of vendor types. In a number of ways, the building is designed to reach out into its surroundings to draw in passers-by. A pedestrian bridge over the adjacent road provides access from Touqian Riverside Park directly into the food court on the first floor, while the market levels on the ground and lower ground floor provide the option to extend market activities into the street and in the shade created by an overpass.