Over the weekend we were all given sometime to start brainstorming some ideas for the stalls individually and the market place as a whole. We were encouraged to visit similar places in Charleston like the Farmers Market in Marion Square, the market in West Ashley, the local markets in Johns Island, like RoseBank Farms, and the smaller sweetgrass basket stands in Mt. Pleasant along 17. I personally already went to Mount Pleasant to see the Sweetgrass stands which was really helpful to understand a sense of scale, the typical stand was either 8×8 or 10×10 which is considered quite small compared to all of our modern day retail outlets. It was a good start to see what this stand could possibly look like, and to actually walk through a built structure.
Over the weekend I also spent some time at the Farmer’s Market at Marion Square. In truth I have never been to a farmer’s market like that. The one we went to representing RoseBank Farms was a sweet, quite place on the side of the road, but the one a Marion Square had so much life. They had a multitude of stalls for different produce, and everything was fresh, you could just tell from the colors of the peppers, the way the onions were kinda bruised so they looked raw, not grown for commercial aesthetics. I had a great time just looking around. Something the Marion Square market had that RoseBank’s didn’t was vendors selling non-perishable items like baskets, windchimes, painting, etc. As well as vendor’s who were selling freshly prepared food items, like BBQ, crepes, and other hot items. While I do not think our market stands will have to accommodate such vendors, it was very helpful knowing how different vendors set up their spaces. I think it is very possible to create spaces adjusting to the different vendors display techniques to accommodate everyone, and to create an area that compliments the FarmStead.
During class we really ramped up the individual design process, where we sat down with Professor Pastre and talked about initial direction of the designs. We collectively agreed the most economical approach to this would be to either lay them out in a “U” or a “L” arrangement both with their pros, and cons. Construction method was something we touched at but felt like it was more important to wait till we understood more how things could be laid out. Something else we talked about was shape and size which we concluded should not be larger then 12×12 preferably 10×10.