Hershey's Trading Market

Bachelor Thesis

Arkitektskolen Aarhus

Cuba | 2019

Tutor: Urszula Koźmińska ground floor

The Cuban town of Camilo Cienfuegos (Hershey) was created for the workers of an American sugar mill of the last century. Since the closure of the mill in 2002, people have been struggling with poverty, unemployment and prospects. This is due to a lack of alternative job opportunities and essential urban facilities.

The design, a “exchange market”, was developed with the approach of understanding the problems as potential. The interior of old ruins of a hotel gets a new use as a marketplace and community center.

From the outside, new structures are established that serve as public workshops on the ground floor of the market in the center of the building. Local residents can produce goods or offer services themselves and then offer them on the market for exchange. The market place is furnished with large umbrellas that provide shade and collect rain.

The project is based on dialogues with local residents and analyses of the Cuban way of renovating buildings. In the context of a disintegrated Americanized city, the draft is an attempt to create liberal working conditions in one of the last socialist systems.