MERCADO 12 DE ABRIL SETTING: Market District
# OF VENDORS: ~ 550
FORM: Covered
WAYFINDING: No
LAYOUT: Terraced Grid
GOODS CATEGORY: Fruit, Vegetables, Meat/
FREQUENCY: Daily
Seafood, Dry Goods
Mercado 12 de Abril is located deep in Ayacucho’s market district, where the streets are bursting. It seems the same volume of vehicle and pedestrian traffic occurring on the wider streets around Mercado de Abastos has been jammed into narrower roadways. Things are more congested, more colorful and less orderly.
The prepared food stands are a colorful focal point of the market. Customers sit and enjoy what they’ve purchased at the stall.
Mercado 12 de Abril is primarily a food market, but there are a variety of hardware products, kitchen goods, and clothes on offer at the edges. This market has no grand entrance and no wayfinding signs. The market building consists of metal walls, wooden support beams and corrugated metal roofing, and the narrow aisles are made of packed dirt. It is a bit dark, but no one seems to mind. The market feels very crowded and extremely jolly. The prepared food stands at Mercado 12 de Abril are particularly lively. Customers sit on benches, often in front of a counter or long table, taking a moment to enjoy what they’ve purchased - even if it is just a juice. All the tables and counters seem to be built or brought by the vendors themselves, and people have taken care to make the seating areas comfortable and inviting using varied colorful fabrics and pillows. Unlike in Mercado de Abastos, where the juice and hot food stands are uniformly built and tucked away in the side of the building, these stands are a colorful focal point in the center of the market. At the edges, the Mercado 12 de Abril building is a very fluid structure. Almost every aisle in the market ends with a doorway to the street. Mobile vendors occupy the sidewalks around the building perimeter, creating a high degree of activity between the doorways, where the market would otherwise have its back to the street. Mercado 12 de Abril lacks any outdoor community space, but the fluidity of the building and the high degree of activity on the sidewalks surrounding the structure lend themselves to the creation of vibrant microgathering spaces on all four sides of the market.
Vendors take care to make seating areas inviting . They use tarps and sheets to provide extra shade above the benches in front of their stalls.
Mobile vendors on the sidewalks create a high degree of activity around the market. There are many micro gathering spaces around the perimeter. PAGE 55 | AYACUCHO, PERU