The American Supermarket: 3 Proto-Typologies
This speculative project was submitted as part of the 24/7 Sandwich Shop's design competition entitled 'Food for Thought'. At the core of the competition was a desire to envision the future interface of architecture and food. That is, how will architecture shape the consumption of food, and/or vice versa.
The North American supermarket has developed alongside a suburban, vehicle-centered culture to become a repository of manufactured foods with a long shelf-life. This is a necessity for the suburban weekly/bi-weekly grocery trip.
Typologically, the supermarket is simple in plan, consisting of a perishable periphery and a non-perishable core. Architecturally, the intention was to subvert this convention both to challenge eating habits of north Americans, as well as to transcend the 'big box' supermarkets. The North American supermarket has developed alongside a suburban, vehicle-centered culture to become a repository of manufactured foods with a long shelf-life. This is a necessity for the suburban weekly/bi-weekly grocery trip.
status ideas competition
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DONUT plan diagram a typical north-american supermarket is organized such that by shopping around the ring, one may eat the healthiest. given this reality, the proto-typology of the donut entirely elminates the center portion of the supermarket, replacing it with a verdant productive center. |
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PYRAMID sectional diagram in somewhat of a tongue-in-cheek fashion, the proto-typology of the pyramid literalizes the food pyramid, again capitalizing on the inconvenient location of the unhealthy foods to render them at the top of this stacked diagram. in other words, in this architectural strategy, those wanting the unhealthy foods must circulate the longest to reach them. |
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RAINBOW plan diagram any study of recent commodity food packaging suggests a dependency on color and flashiness as a means of recognizability. as such, the rainbow seeks to re-think the standard organization of the grocery store by re-shuffling its contents, this time by organizing all items by color. the intent is to thwart the marketing effort of the junk foods by making flashy packaging a liability, rather than an asset. instead, those items known by their color (corn, broccoli, tomatoes, etc.) become easily searchable. |
