Drew Cogbill | Thesis Blog

The main brick column here is about 6 feet tall.  I assumed that the top of it was closed off, so I set my wallet and two sets of keys on it, which promptly fell into a crevice.  It took the hotel staff about 30 minutes to help me fish out my belongings with wire hangers.  The builder of the building happened to be eating dinner at a table about 10 feet from the column during the event.

–

The San Ignacio market has about 10 vendors on weekdays, but on Saturdays the market area is flooded with a huge number of merchants.  In the last year, a new, large structure was built for the market to house the everyday vendors and a new concrete slab was laid for the weekend merchants to set up temporary tents on.

I think it’s great that there is investment being put into infrastructure for something so obviously important to the local economy, but I think there are a few major oversights in the design of the site.  The most major one is that the majority of the vendors are on a north-south axis and the east to west brightly shining sun blasts in on the vendors and their products essentially all day every day.  To deal with this, all of the vendors have strung up tarps or sheets to block out the sun.

Additionally, the design of the stalls just doesn’t seem to consider what will happen in them.  Every stall has added a system of ropes and pipes to hang bananas and other good off for selling.  They are making the most of their space, but the design of the stall could have anticipated and assisted in this and other produce selling needs.

Also: