Dyeing Urban Fabrics” is a synthesis of participatory architectures that aim to catalyse the community led redevelopment of Fondouk Chejra - one of Tangier’s historic traders’ markets, steeped in tradition from the weavers and fruit sellers working on site.
The project looks to democratise the design process through a series of architectural interventions driven by analogue processes and woven by the lived experience of the existing community. Where people make the market, it makes sense to approach the redevelopment through the lens of a community led co-designed practice, whilst intertwining traditional fabric production methods into the architecture.
Hand drawing and analogue model making methods have been used firstly as a means of total immersion for the architect, in gaining an understanding of the levels of hyperactivity within the city and the lives of the people who inhabit it. And secondly, as a means for engaging the existing community in a democratic design process using physical models to convey, discuss and modify architectural propositions accessibly.
Instead of being programmatically prescriptive the architecture aims to let space go to the community, acting as a seed for incrementality in providing the infrastructure to facilitate informal growth under the harsh Moroccan sun. Community ownership and resilience is developed within the site as it grows in phases, critically informed by the tacit knowledge of the weavers and dye makers who shape the future of the Fondouk’s urban fabric.
