Co-Adaptation 09

Retail

Not unlike the Italian ‘Autogrill’ the center, situated along the highway like a rest stop, provides an unexpected point of entry. Comprised of the research laboratories, a cafe, retail and education displays and a product collection point, the center serves as the public face of the site. It is here, along the highway, that people engage in social public space. One can park, tour the laboratories, pick up a young tree, sip some fair trade coffee, or venture further down the site to investigate the growing trays and a fi rst hand experience of the process. Juxtaposed with eighteen wheelers rumbling by at 65 mph makes the center’s civic and cultural role more pertinent and poignant. It allows one to access, inhabit and escape from a ‘concrete island.’ An urban space that is most typically invisible.