Stocking the City: 2011-12 John K. Branner Fellowship Application
6
PROPOSAL The intention for this proposal was driven by a few basic questions: What are the potential alternatives to the current food retail system in the Bay Area, and how can these alternatives promote comprehensive social, environmental, economic and educational benefits that are currently neglected by profit-driven supermarkets? What are the urban and architectural opportunities for such an alternative system, and what form might these take at the scale of a retail market? Where do precedents of an alternative typology exist, and how could lessons learned from them complement a thesis proposal for a public market in the Bay Area? The full complexity of issues related to global food systems are beyond the scope of this proposal, but through an investigation of public urban markets as an urban typology, I will demonstrate the contemporary relevance and systemic potential of a typically nostalgic (and commercially appropriated) building type. Considering the contemporary interest among designers in productive urban agricultural systems7, there is a contradiction in the perception of markets as an outmoded historical typology. In cities with active public markets, these structures have the potential to perform as social, economic and cultural catalysts, operating as nodes in systems that support direct exchange between independent producers and urban consumers. Barcelona, for example, where many historic markets have been (or will soon be) renovated by contemporary design practices, “relies on public markets for a high percentage of its food distribution: 81% of its residents report that they regularly shop at the city’s 41 neighborhood markets [in 1995].”8 In many other cities however, the physical structure of markets have been contrived as “Festival Marketplaces”, which often appropriate Jane Jacob’s infamous model for urbanism, but tend to rely on national retail chains rather than independent vendors to attract customers.9 Public markets in many cities around the world participate in food distribution systems at a scale that farmers markets in the United States currently do not, while contributing to public benefits that supermarkets entirely neglect. My proposal for the 2011-12 John K. Branner Fellowship is to study these markets as spatial, tectonic, social and economic structures that facilitate public activity, independent local and regional economies, and democratic access to local food. This analysis will yield a case study, site strategy and programming reference document that will inform my forthcoming thesis proposal.
image: Andreas Gursky, 99 cent
image: Andrea Branzi, Agronica
image: Barcelona Public Markets Map, from http://www.bcn.cat/en