2003 Rotch Scholar - Bradley Shanks

Winning Solution Boards Travel Plans

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Concept

A supermarket is typically a simple box, a temporary repository of food - the place between the farm and the home. For various cultural and economic reasons, this building type has become a simple volume, formulaic in its dimensions, and artificially lit. As consumers, we expect to find the food clean and well organized, and in a sterile environment.

The project aims to bring the source of food into the city, not just the product itself. Shoppers are more aware of the origins of the food they are buying. The proposal is in many ways the opposite of the supermarket, or the inverted supermarket - daylight is welcomed in, shopping occurs inside and outside the building, and on different levels. Produce is neither clean nor sterile - in some instances the food is actually still growing inside the building. Food is understood more as an organic process, and less as a commodity.

Site

The project interacts with the park space, pushing and pulling its boundaries and distorting the notion of building/park. The trees that line the new boulevards zigzag across the park, in effect borrowing part of the open space and claiming it as market space. Thus the space of the Market footprint doubles, creating an open plaza for vending and festivals. Diagrammatically, the green space taken from the park is like a green carpet, which slides up and over the building - the park claims the building as park space in return.

Building

The primary building material is plant material. On the ground floor, it is the produce for sale in the stalls. Above the first level, it is the plants that produce flowers, herbs, and berries for harvest and sale. This building material changes color and texture seasonally, and animates the facades even on a daily basis.

The east facade contains the element of vertical landscape - rows of large window boxes stacked above the second level. These boxes function both as planters for flowers, herbs and bushes, and as a screen for eastern light. Vendors use the planters to grow a variety of produce and flowers, which can be harvested in the presence of customers. The year-round growing of plants becomes a living billboard, directly advertising the building as a Market.