Vashell Way Maker’s Market

With its charming scale and proximity to services, a public delivery route in the East Bay town of Orinda has appeared on the planning department's list of “opportunity sites” for years. When Laraarchitecture moved its offices to an adjacent building, an opportunity to test the space as a public plaza was born.

In collaboration with local businesswomen, Jenny Hill and Jennifer Sampou, Laraarchitecture closed the alley to traffic for a day and reshaped the alley into a makers market bringing color and life into the normally quiet downtown.

While this placemaking event was cheap and temporary, it served as an effective test to demonstrate the negligible impacts on traffic with this street closure and ease community resistance to change. Vashell Way Maker’s Market attracted over 200 visitors that day supporting 16 local vendors and artists.