Subasta Alamar
Cooperative Auction for Urban Agricultural Products
C.E.M. Blom (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
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Abstract
With the fall of the Socialist block in 1989, the Cuban national economy collapsed, followed by a severe scarcity in gasoline, materials and especially food. Of Alamar, a socialist housingproject in construction in East Havana only the areas dedicated to dwelling were finished, leaving the neighbourhood without a defined public space or economic centre. Due to the limited transportation possibilities and the distance to the inner city, Alamar became relatively isolated from the rest of Havana. Out of necessity, the inhabitants started to cultivate vacant areas between building blocks.
More than twenty years later, this practice is not only still an important source of employment, income and food security for the community, but Havana, and Alamar in particular, has become internationally known as a frontrunner in sustainable urban agriculture. However, the development of urban agriculture is in danger, mainly as a result of the singe-sided support approach by the state, a centralized distribution and marketing system that offers little material incentives or economic freedom and the looming risks of an inevitably drastically changing social, political and economic context.
The ambition of this project:
The introduction of a new economic platform for the distribution and marketing of urban agricultural products that facilitates the development of a resilient, sustainable, community-driven local food economy in Alamar and the larger Havana region.