2G1/3G4 - ARCH 552 - FALL 2025
WATERHOLE(S)
PUBLIC MARKETS, whether "Super", "Hyper", "Stock", or "Black," are part of the core species of spaces that shape community values and social performance. Be they bazaar or bespoke, they are, in essence, a willful exercise in civics – a "water(ing) hole"; a tool of sustenance for both place and situation. Mutable, stealthy, and stocked with asynchronous edibles, exotic narratives, and far-flung geographies, one always finds more than the intended bargain.
As condensers of capital and communion, divinity and dissection share visceral admiration across exquisite surgical tables. Here, pints, pecks, and pounds compete with ethics, politics, and nostalgia, where "fresh off the boat" is both an asset and a murmured slur. "Funk" and "rot" switch endearments. Gluten-free avocados compete with cage-free strawberries, and sometimes you wish "farm fresh "wasn't "that" fresh. It's in the double-trouble of promise and poison that "public" markets trade, and it's also the location where our waterhole(s) will manifest.
Each schematic development of one "delicious" building begins with a symbolic "pound of flesh"– a 4" x 4" cube of "market matter" whose cooked-up discourse supports the exchange of empathetic values between customers and customs, workers and work, and producers and production. They also serve as tasty antecedents for a fuller spatial deployment and a more specific refresh of the civic/market typology.
Each waterhole/building comprises a single material portion of a larger Public Market ensemble, and the set sits at the water's edge along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.