Market City

Markets are regular gathering places, where people share themselves through what they make, collect or do. It’s at the market where we take part in public life, and see the creativity and entrepreneurism of our community. While it’s usually a public place where buyers and sellers gather, the impacts can be larger. Driven by the need to address climate change, food insecurity, housing affordability, and reconciliation different types of markets can and have emerged - like markets without money, alternative currencies, recycling depots, fix-it and culture exchanges, clothes swaps, fleas, conventions, farmers and craft markets. Why doesn’t Metro Vancouver have a bigger range and volume of public markets? 

Through this studio, we created Market Zones for the city. We envisioned market spaces that meet wider social/environmental purposes. We decided where to designate and design a market zone, and considered what the drivers of these markets would be. Important to the success of markets is operations - so we also looked at how our market zone could operate or be organized. Should market zones be highly structured? Or are there ways to create more informal markets, community organized that invite a wider range and different types of participation?