Tacoshed

Click to see larger / Graphics and content © 2009-2010 Fletcher Studios/Rebar

Click to see larger / Graphics and content © 2009-2010 Fletcher Studios/Rebar

Last fall a group of CCA architecture students, led by Landscape Architect David Fletcher and Rebar art and design studio, shared a meal together at a local taco truck for a class assignment. Our research seminar explored San Francisco’s food and wastesheds. Our premise was that a seemingly simple, familiar food like the taco truck taco could provide visceral insight into the connections between the systems we were exploring. By thoroughly learning the process of formation and lifecycle what it takes to make a taco, we would be better able to propose and design a speculative model of a holistic and sustainable urban future.

What resulted was a richly complex network of systems, flows and ecologies that we call the global Tacoshed.

The class's research was presented to great interest at a public event in February 2010, and further explorations and applications of the data are in the works. You can follow progress of the project on the @tacoshed Twitter account.

The Tacoshed project was collaboration between David Fletcher and Rebar, with the students of the Brave New Ecologies Course taught in the Fall of 2009 as part of URBANlab, an innovative curriculum component of The California College of the Arts Architecture Program. Maps and graphics were created by Rachael Yu and Annie Aldrich, Teresa Aguilera (Rebar), and Fletcher Studio.