Mercado Salado

University of Puerto Rico - Río Piedras Campus

Project idea

“Mercado Salado” inserts traditional Puerto Rican fishing villages in direct confrontation with public policies that exclude locals from access to Puerto Rican coasts, while granting access to the tourism industry. In this way, it challenges issues of community displacement, legislation, and the right locals have to their land. The imminent rise of sea level is used as the framework to destabilize existing zoning regulations to safeguard the existence of a local fishing community while recognizing that part of Mercado Salado and its site will be lost to the Caribbean waters.

Project description

“Mercado Salado” is the architectural project of the thesis “Villas Pesqueras of Puerto Rico: Documenting the Coastal Culture Through Architectural Discourse”, which documents traditional fishing villages around the island and emphasizes how these communities have been historically marginalized using filmmaking as an architectural research method. The architectural project combines two typologies and programs: the traditional ‘Villa Pesquera’ (official center for fresh seafood distribution around the island) and a hospitality facility.

The site selection contemplates the research done in which a film was produced documenting and contrasting the past and present state of three 'Villas Pesqueras' around the island. As encountered during the research, in these spaces exists a rich social and cultural interaction that identifies the coasts of Puerto Rico, in which fishers play a vital role. Even though fishing and its gastronomic activity are cultural key elements on the island’s coasts, fishers have proven to be a historically marginalized population.

Considering those aspects, the site selection is driven by the history and political confrontation in the space. The site is in Punta Santiago, a fishing community on the island's east side. Geographically, it is surrounded by water: on the north by the lagoon of the Natural Reserve and on the south by the Caribbean Sea. Punta Santiago has proximity to Monkey Island, a small island inhabited by Rhesus Monkeys for scientific purposes since 1938, as well as its proximity to Vieques island.

In the past, from the 1920s up to the 1970s, the land now known as the Natural Reserve was occupied by the sugar cane crops of the Sugar Industry. The pier, located on the coast, served as a transportation infrastructure where the sugar cane from the nearby island of Vieques was collected to process in the Sugar Mill. This land was wet, and a complex system was implemented to dredge the site. Still, in the 1970s, parallel to the downfall of the sugar industry, the community flooded, and the residents reclaimed the government that the site must be considered a conservation site. Since then, the pier was passed down to the community, and the ‘Villa Pesquera’ of Humacao was established.

Regarding political controversies, Punta Santiago was one of the communities greatly affected by Hurricane Maria. The community went viral for writing “SOS we need water and food” on the street, seeking help because it got uncommunicated. Another controversy is the negligence and false promises the government has made about reconstructing the pier and building a boat ramp that the fishers have reclaimed for over two decades.

According to the zoning regulations, this site falls into Commercial Tourism (C-T) and Intermediate Residential Tourism (R-T). The uses permitted are conventional commercial programs, residential, hospitality facilities, and services like travel agencies, restaurants, and offices. Taking this into consideration, zoning laws don’t promote fishing activities, and the fishers are not considered in the policies, given that most uses promote the development of recreational activities on the coast that exclude the established community. Therefore, Mercado Salado challenges the zoning regulations by incorporating hospitality with the traditional program of a ‘Villa Pesquera’. In this way, the project responds to the community's needs by integrating the tourism industry as an alternative way for the fishing village to sustain itself.

As a result, the architectural piece incorporates and restores the historic pier, giving it a new meaning and acknowledging the effects of rising sea levels up to the year 2100. The project has three main components: the pier that receives the visitors from the ferry service and where the hotel rooms are inserted, the ‘Varadero’ where fishers work, give maintenance to their boats, and craft their artisanal fishing techniques, and lastly, the market that has direct access to the community and is composed of a fish market, fishing gear shop, administration offices, restaurant, and hotel check-in.

The building is designed considering three primary users: fishers, locals, and visitors that want to learn and experience the fishing culture of Punta Santiago. For this reason, the building has two main entrances: a grand staircase with an integrated ramp granting access to the local community. On the other end, the pier allows access to visitors traveling through the ferry service. The hotel is inserted into the pier, allowing guests to view the fishing activities held on the pier, the ‘Varadero’, and the community. It is a space where social, commercial, and entertainment interaction is cultivated with traditional local cultural activities. The hotel consists of three modules named after characteristics of the fishing culture of Punta Santiago. The largest module –“El Pescador”– accommodates up to six guests and has a full kitchen with the idea that guests can acquire fresh sea products from the market to cook a traditional meal with a local fisher. One of the rooms of this module has the iconic view of the arrival of the ferry and the commemorative buoy framed by a window with built-ins.

Inland, the market, restaurant, and other amenities are located. The atrium allows natural illumination and ventilation in the middle of this space. It also reinforces the axis of the pier with patios that integrate the landscape into the building. The restaurant incorporates the hotel's check-in through the bar, where guests are greeted with a complimentary drink –mojito of sargassum– and encounter the gastronomical experience firsthand. The restaurant also has a terrace that allows visitors views of the ‘Varadero’. On the opposite side, the market space is composed of sixteen modules with different sea products, one of them being sargassum, which the project celebrates as a new product due to its excess because of climate change. The market connects to the fish scaling zone, where the sea product is firstly collected through the fish drop-off.

Therefore, “Mercado Salado” reimagines what could be the future of the ‘Villa Pesquera’, it bets on the economy of the sea, and it values the site’s past, passing from a history where the community sustained itself from sugar, now to the sea and salty products.

Technical information

The structural system is composed of a steel truss system that forms an undulating effect representing the ocean's waves. Its ceiling is subdivided into bands that shift in one plane to indicate that coasts are not static and they are constantly transforming. The building is lifted from the ground in concrete piles that allow the project to adapt and resist the effect of rising sea levels. Another key design element is the landmark that crowns the end of the pier: the commemorative buoy. This commemorative buoy serves as a viewing platform to contemplate the views, a measuring device for weather conditions for the fishers' voyages, and a symbol with the Puerto Rican flag attached, commemorating the community’s resistance and hope after hurricane María.