Abstract:
Agapaō Commons - a public square, cafe, care center and market - responds primarily to the need of this neighborhood for a family oriented services node and the need for a facility to care for neighbors who have grown too ill or to old to care for themselves. The neighborhood is in an older decaying inner city area with a population about 85% black with a large elderly segment. The project has been developed with the attitudes of Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language and is an attempt to provide a vital center of family and neighborhood life. The market is merely a skeleton to facilitate and encourage the efforts of local entrepreneurs to provide small scale goods and services. The project is in keeping with local materials and forms and makes no pretense of being anything other than healthy, solid and comfortable.
