Post the 7.0 Mv earthquake of Haiti in 2010, the country and mostly the capital, Port-au-Prince, was reduced to nearly nothing. The market infrastructure especially that was in place had been forced to join the street marketplace and continue with business without their brick and mortar locations. Ultimately, we observed that the major urgency to address in the informal Haitian street marketplace was a lack of efficient organization. Our proposal introduces a design concept that would accommodate for the sale of commercial goods, facilitate more effective cooperation among Haitian merchants and consumers of the informal market. Pulling synergies from the existing vendor strategies would allow one to create a new hybrid market condition based on collaboration and communication. Redundant competition in this street market proved to not be beneficial for buyers or sellers.
We believed that by forming a unique intermediary between formal and informal market participants, we will begin to create an even stronger platform for vendors that will enhance their ability to provide services for others. A proposed design was developed for La Marche de Petionville, a two acres site is situated in the center of Petionville that illustrates the vision behind the intervention. We created a lightweight selling stand that could be stored and transported with ease to cover more selling ground and alleviate the existing 'Tap Tap' carpool bus systems.
We envision that our proposal will foster strong collaboration, enhance safety, empower merchants, and will begin to create a more cooperative interlaced culture of vendors contrasting the counterproductive individualistic armature which currently exists. Using a combination of natural and imported materials, the proposed designs will be comprised of Gadua bamboo, sisal, and steel. The bamboo would be harvested and produced locally, in an effort to encourage and support local use of materials.
