Food and the City: Auckland’s Edible Urbanism

Abstract

Food is an inescapable part of our everyday lives, occupying both space and time. Our built environment is geared around the production, distribution, storage, preparation, serving, eating and disposal of this precious commodity. Often the simple act of buying or eating food in the city happens in unexpected places; rushing to a meeting, in a car park, on a plastic crate while other moments involve ceremony and ritual. These occasions can involve an isolated act, or involve a group of people generating feelings of communality and intimacy. These public spaces of food make up a lot of our urban streetscape. The architectural proposal of this thesis takes the form of an urban food market, developed via an investigation of the architectural opportunities available through an interaction with the food realm to understand how these interchanges can play out in our cities of today. The most common space food inhabits that is familiar to almost everyone is the table. This raised, horizontal surface draws together varying people, pathways, functions, activities and spaces. A marketplace embodies the same qualities of the table at a much larger scale, giving an intimate insight into 'The City'. The design proposal looks to amalgamate architectural concepts surrounding the intimate exchange accommodated by the table as a device and the inherent quality of food markets enabling civic and community identity. The exploration seeks to draw out the imaginative and sensual possibilities of articulating an architecture of food for the modern day city and city dweller.