THE SPINE OF EJISU

Project idea

The average Ghanaian street is characterized by the variety of commercial activities that take place on it. Streets in Ejisu, in the Ashanti Region of Ghana, are no different, especially streets in the city’s historical core— clustered with selling containers, makeshift wooden structures, petty businesses under umbrellas, etc. The design objective is to redesign the selected street into one that is mainly for the people and factors in all their activities and elements essential to their wellbeing. The idea is to turn the street into an “art exhibit”— into a space that everyone would love to experience, one that clearly portrays the rich and diverse culture of the people of Ejisu.

Project description

The scope of this projects covers redesigning the street and its functions and also designing a generic sale booth that can serve if not all, most of the already done commercial activities on the street. It consists of a thorough study of inventory of the site, utility around the site, movement and circulation on and around the site, it looked at the typologies of the sale structures used on site so as to help craft one that serves all, and also studied the typical items sold on the site. Study was done to really help profile and understand the problems at hand to help in crafting solutions for them.

Technical information

The generic sale booth is a cost-effective unit made out of mostly wood, joined together with metal joints, supported with steel posts and anchored to the ground in concrete footings. A single unit provides six stalls for the market men and women on the Ejisu streets. Its generic nature allows use by a variety of sellers and for variety of purposes.