Queensland’s biggest and most expansive food precinct includes The Kitchens, a lavish Market Hall, billed as the first-of-its-kind in the country.

Buchan’s retail master plan for Market Hall Redevelopment at Robina Town Centre creates the opportunity for many improvements to the centre. This includes a two-storey major new food precinct, now dubbed ‘The Kitchens’, imagined as ‘a mix of food court, hall and factory’. It creates a theatrical experience like that of a street market.

It sits between two large supermarkets and consists of a diverse collection of 65 new traders, including butchers, fishmongers, restaurants, bars, cafes, teaching kitchens and a microbrewery. All of which celebrate local, regional produce, supplying the very best local products available.

Spanning the newly created precincts is a grand, unifying roof structure, undulating in great radial waves. The redevelopment concept design, by UK firm ACME, incorporates skylighting in the wave ridges, drawing light into the centre. The multi-storey, open-concept space incorporates industrial stairs, lifts and escalators. They connect the levels throughout, allowing easy circulation as visitors, retailers and suppliers mix in the market-like bustle of the space. Inside, the volume evokes a reversed nave, an impression reinforced by the regular ribs and strips of honey coloured timber.