Program: Marketplace

Mayan agriculture relied heavily on the seasonal cycles within their region for harvest. The Maize God was revered in his powers for providing the reason for harvest and his own life cycle symbolizing the changes from fall to winter. In addition, the storage of their crops played an essential part to how they activated their own profits as well as public gathering, for the more harvest there was, the more people would buy and at times the more there would be for storage. And much like the harvest they fostered, the farmers would set up shop and within days have it disassembled to begin another year of cultivation.

The client in regards to such a place would hold the position of a rural farmer within the city of Uxmal. He would need to be allocated within a space that can provide for large groups as well a local scale of commerce. His space for commerce would be subdivided into aisles or nitches that could hold smaller groups that were in search of specific fruits or items. The pathway within the said space is cyclical in order to ease flow throughout the space. Light and sound play a direct correlation into this portion of the intervention, as light guides the time and hours of operation for the market and sound acts as a catalyst for commerce and informs the aisles of forthcoming density and space.

A gathering space is also essential for the client because there needs to be somewhat of a plaza for the villagers to occupy besides the market. The space is fitted for large groups of occupants and holds to the idea of an adjacency to the market as well as a program that provides multiple axes of directionality. Those that gather in this plaza of sorts are in a shift from ground to a man made construct signifying a change in significance, much like many other Mayan constructs. The gathering space would also house niches for those who are enveloped to sit and socialize. The space is then converted to a promenade, where the plaza informs the adjacent areas and acts as a transportation system in itself.

Beneath the gathering space would be compartments drastically smaller in scale for the farmers to store their crops. The spaces are shallow and lengthy in order to store many crops in a confined space to avoid spoiling and utilize space that is necessary. The space also intersects with the market throw the main threshold as to provide an accessible entry for storage.

These 3 scales of space work together to create an atmosphere that one can barder through commerce as well as gather. However, there is a particular piece within the structure that provides a different form of significance to the intervention. Many times, the farmers had to provide some form of payment to higher officials such as the royals or high priests. A top of the market there would be a space for such a transaction to occur. The space creates a path from the Governors Palace to the market for the farmers to perform the ritual of transaction as form of pay for setting up the market in the space provided on the great platform. the Space adds to the hierarchical set of the market and is isolated from the gathering spaces to bring a disruption to the itinerary of the overal intervention.