The New Guabuliga Market is a design and implementation project that has been growing from our engagement with the community of Guabuliga in northern Ghana since 2011. Based on field research conducted in markets throughout Ghana in 2018, the project team designed an iconic modular market structure that is aimed at attracting traders to the remote town and strengthening the socio-economic performance of the community. The design comprises a floorscape and roofscape that respond to programmatic, climatic, and urban parameters and includes an integrated water source, built furniture, flexible display options, and a market shop for locally made products that evokes the form of traditional grain silos in the region. Construction commenced in early 2019 and the market opened in August 2019. In February 2020, the market was extended with two zones adjacent to the market platform for activities to extend beyond the formal structures as the market has attracted a growing number of people.
Bio [applied] Foreign Affairs is a trans-disciplinary lab at the Institute of Architecture of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, established by Baerbel Mueller, in 2011. [a]FA investigates spatial, infrastructural, environmental and cultural phenomena in rural and urban Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. Each lab project centers on a distinct question or clear mission and culminates in field trips and residencies through which (applied) research, mappings, rural and urban growth patterns, urban prototypes, imaginary (art) spaces, and relational physical interventions are produced.
