Designs have been unveiled for a social-distancing food market

Architecture studio Shift Architecture Urbanism have created a model for a food market with social-distancing at the forefront of its designs.

The Hyperlocal Micro Market network has been designed so that customers can buy their food without coming into contact with one another.

 The markets will be made up of 16-sqaure grids that can be easily constructed in the middle of any town or city and will provide a range of food including fruit, vegetables, meat and fish.

Across the world, public markets have been forced to close due to the coronavirus pandemic which has led to strains on over congested supermarkets.

Customers can buy their food without coming into contact with one another

As well as being a safer environment, the micro markets are also seen as a lower cost alternative to supermarkets.

"Even with protective measures it seems very difficult if not impossible to rule out the risk of contamination in traditional fresh produce markets," said architects from the studio.

"But this is also the case at the supermarkets that do stay open.

“The social distancing rules are very hard to control and many people are touching the same products."

The design splits up existing markets and scatters different stalls throughout a neighbourhood.

Each individual “micro market” has three stalls, one entrance, two exits and two counters – one to order food and one to collect it. Up to six people are allowed into the space at the same time but one only person can occupy each square within the grid at one time.  Products are sold as packages rather than individually in order to speed up the shopping process.

In recent weeks, we’ve seen a number of creative design solutions to help ease the pressure on essential services – most recently the temporary hospital that was constructed within London’s Excel convention arena.