Finding Community in Our Convenience
Funding from the Harvey Geiger Summer Research in Architecture
and the Lewis P. Curtis Senior Research Fellowship
Advised by Henk Van Assen, Senior Critic at YSOArt; Recommended by Kyle Dugdale, Senior Critic at YSOArch
Summer 2024
Over three months, I traveled to four countries— New Zealand, Japan, the UK, and Germany—documenting the social and physical presence of convenience stores through observation, interviews, and photography. Often overlooked, the transient nature of these stores appealed to my interest in urban regeneration.
This project aimed to fill the gap in visual documentation and legitimize the convenience store, regardless of its scale, as a vital community asset. By intentionally selecting countries with diverse socialization patterns, streetscapes, and urban grids, I explored how these stores foster in-person connections and serve as neighborhood anchors in an increasingly isolated world. This research also pushed me to initiate dozens of conversations with locals, transforming initial perceptions of convenience stores as insignificant into deeper reflections on their role in daily life, evoking personal memories and emphasizing their value as spaces of community.
(post-travel report issuu link)
Homegrown: The Kiwi Dairy
May 2024
Practical: The Japanese Konbini
June 2024
Relic: The London Corner Shop
Aug
2024
Community: Berlin’s Späti
July 2024