University of Houston College of Architecture

Architecture Studio Project and Research led by UltraBarrio Partner Amna Ansari

Third Ward Grocer Institute

Neighborhood Grocery Store/Market and Cross-Generational Cooking School

Credits: All graphics and images by students of Architecture Studio 4510 Fall 2021, including cover icon.

Studio Program

Project Prompt

This project references City of Houston’s Third Ward Complete Communities action plan, as well as ideas presented under the Designing for Impact Series. The action plan identifies the need for increasing access to healthy foods for the community.

‘Much of the Third Ward has been designated a ‘food desert’, where affordable and nutritious food is difficult to access. Overall, 25% of households in the Third Ward live in low-income census tracts and

do not have a car, according to data provided by the USDA Food Desert Map. These 1,347 households, or approximately 3,600 residents, struggle to access fresh and affordable food for their families.’ - Third Ward CC Action Plan. The new MacGregor Market HEB that opened in December of 2019 is located at North MacGregor and Highway 288, southwest and outside of Greater Third Ward - not centrally located.

The studio is focused on how we can create a spatial and program intervention that stresses neighborhood connectivity and activity.

PROJECT RESPONSE

The program is a ‘Grocer Institute’ that is a community grocery store and a cross generational cooking school to increase access to healthy food options and provide a space for the community to gather, share, learn, and cook. This space will include opportunities for all members of the community from the youth to the elderly to participate in culinary programs and share traditions. The approximate 15,000 SF program will be a two-story building that will include logistics of a grocery store and a cooking school at a localized scale - responding to the neighborhood context. As designers you will be asked to think beyond a traditional big box grocery store, and interrogate ideas of program, layout and interaction of spaces that benefit the community and infuse pedestrian street activity.

INVESTIGATION

We set out to ask not only how architecture can continue to function but also how it can play a transformational role in it. This studio sets out to envision the site as a prototype that can respond to the needs of the community.

Credits: All graphics and images by students of Architecture Studio 4510 Fall 2021, including cover icon.