'THREADED TOGETHER MARKET'
A Hyper-local take on one of Portland's most prominent industries, the Threaded Together Market is an effort to re-center production and craft in the conversation around shoe making and consumption as a visible, celebrated, and integral part of the community.
Since Phil Knight and Nike set up shop over the West Hills three decades ago, the Portland area has become a mecca for shoe design. Alongside dozens of freelance shoe designers, no fewer than 8 national and international footwear brands call Portland home, yet few of them produce any part of their products in the United States, let alone in Portland. All the while, streetwear, couture fashion, and fast fashion have intermixed to create a culture of waste that alienates consumers from the craft and artistry shoe making entails.
The Threaded Together Market is a vertically integrated production facility for independent shoe designers and brands that allows them to showcase their process from beginning to end. The facility contains space dedicated to each step of the production process, from the initial design sketch, to spinning renewable plant fibers into thread, to weaving that thread into fabrics, and finally to sewing the shoe into its final form. Supplementing this process is the building’s urban nursery, which grows Oregon Grape and Yarrow, both native species which can be used to create natural dyes designers can use. Additionally, the nursery functions as a hub for bees and local pollinators, whose beeswax can also be harvested by makers to waterproof their footwear.
The building is centered around a public atrium and ‘community shelf’ which features ‘shoe elevators’ which can be used by workers to move the shoes between production spaces. This visual spectacle helps to engage and educate the public about each step in the shoemaking process. At the ground floor, the shelf breaks to form the marketplace, spilling out to the edges of the building and the sidewalk. After hours, these street front community shelves allow the building’s unhoused neighbors an opportunity to exchange their worn-out shoes for new ones produced in the market.
Location: Portland, OR
Year: 2021
Type: Studio Project
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