DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

MARKET BEARINGS

 

What’s going on now out there with the market, consumers, customers, prospects and in general?

 

Street vending can be achieved in different ways. There are vendors (in our project’s case are the customers) that do food vending with a food-truck, which is very modern, and for sure more approachable. That is usually because they “look” cleaner, fresh, sexy and for sure branded. Other vendors that cook on-board use push-carts, which consume heat energy using gas tanks that are portable and are not engine driven and definitely not branded. They look run-down mainly because the push-cart is designed by the vendor himself or had bought it from a vendor who designed it himself. The material they use is majorly rubbish, left over unused material, and whatever looks appropriate. In my opinion this makes those push-carts special in a way or another. The market also includes some push-carts that are smaller than the regular size (1.5m x 0.7m) push-carts. The smaller ones are usually for coffee vendors. The push-carts, them being small or average size, are usually owned by the vendor/slum dweller himself and he has to take care of its maintenance and storage. Renting is not a common option.

 

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What are the needs of the market place we can serve?

 

The pains:

They are living in an unserved area, and are not welcomed outside the slum. The need of the market place is unseperable from the needs of the slum dwellers themselves. The main neccesity is access to jobs and shelter. We are starting with the former aiming to reach the latter needs. 


Specifically, the market needs a modern and approachable push-cart that can enable the vendors to confidently go to neighboring areas (middle to high income neighborhoods) and vend to them. The expansion of the market is what is needed. As for the push-carts themselves, we are looking at enhancing the durability, flexibility and weight of the existing push-carts, to meet the needs of our market segments (i.e. different vendors vending different objects)

 

 

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Where is your market —whom you serve — now with your question or idea?

 

The market is the street. More specifically street vendors on the street. Even more specifically (or a case-study) in Ouzai-Lebanon. The project serves the slum dwellers who are currently working in the market of the slum as street vendors, or are living in the slum and are unemployed and willing to try street vending if supplied with the necessary tools. On a greater scale, the project is aiming to serve an unserved population that lack access to greater markets, and only stick to their own markets.  

 

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What do they need?

 

They need to maximize profit from street vending, which is anyway a dying business in the Lebanese market. They need to access neighborhoods that would support their vending and find it useful. They need to not worry about a day to day income, and instead gain more to worry less.

 

In addition, they have surplus amounts of garbage, which is usually incinerated or thrown on the main street / market in hope that the city would pick that up. Incineration causes fires and is not safe, as for throwing garbage on the street, it is only causing health problems

 

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Who else is serving that need?

 

To maximize profit, they are having to vend longer hours, and even have more than one job. They are having to commute long distances between vending in the slum and the other job that is way further from home/slum. They are building more units to rent them to foreign refugees to maximize profit (which means that they are risking the safety of the slum by adding more weight and pressure).

 

 

To clean-up the slums, there are organizations that are trying to come-up with strategic cleaning plans, that is only voluntary and unincentivized. 

 

 

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What is this period like?

 

Although it might sound super clever to use recyclable material found in the slum to create the structure (Lego, U-Bar), the idea has been there for a while. A lot of architectural firms including  Studio Gang ArchitectsinFORM StudioRoss Barney ArchitectsAlonso de Garay Architects, NL Architects Photographs:  Paula Bailey, Steve Hall, Justin Machonachie, Juan Luis Martinez Nahuel, Sheng Zhonghai, Jimena Carranza, NL Architects have taken that approach. However, each does it is in a different way. Designers have used recyclable materials in their current shape and form (i.e. a can stays a can) to design a wall. In our project’s case, we will be transforming (i.e. crushing and compressing different recyclable material around the slum (specifically tire plastic and tin roofs) to come up with an end product, the structure bar, that doesn’t reflect the originality of the material. It simply looks like a rod/bar etc.

 

 

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When did it begin?

 

The idea started long time ago, and although a lot of debate has been around the topic, it is hard to signify a certain date to it. Yet, confidently speaking, the idea came as a solution to an emergency, the architecture of emergency. The vendors we are tackling in this project, already do use recyclable material to come up with their push-cart out of necessity and the lack of resources. The way they do it now, is use the “garbage wood” material to bring together a cart. On the other hand, we will use the material after it goes through cleaning, sanitizing and proper remodeling phases, allowing for a modern and sustainable approach to their original idea of reusable waste.  

 

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What do you see?

 

I see a lot of potential, but I see a lot of fear as well. The fear of the unknown.

I fear what I do not know yet, and they fear me because I know what they don’t.

We have to collaborate.

 

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What do you think?

 

I think that there are several steps ahead and going down to the street and talking to my customers is the number one priority at this phase. Along with that, I think that as long as the project stays simple, we can always win this.

 

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What do you feel?

 

 

I feel like I am on a mission to make a change. The need is there and soon the solution will be as well.

 

                                                                           

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Who else is serving that need?

As mentioned above, there are existing devices on the market (Google Nest, monitoring devices, smartphone applications) that meet pieces of the need to address household energy and water consumption in a more sustainable way. I argue, however, that none of these products offer homeowners a wholistic measure of consumption (both energy and water), and do not encourage behavior change in a systematic, intentional way.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.