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Matthew Milewski

Professor Rios

ENC 1102H

3 Feburary 2014

UCF's Marketplace and Considerations of Space

Movie theaters, parking garages, convenience stores; all of these are considered places, or

more broadly, spaces. Spaces are, put simply, either conceptual, lived, or practical areas. UCF's

Marketplace is one example of the latter, and it serves as an overall good example of how spaces

can be constructed to properly serve their intended purposes. The UCF Marketplace constructs

its space to serve food to students, be easily accessible, and provide a reflexive atmosphere.

As the University of Central Florida's main lunchroom (another one, Knightros, can be

found near the arena, but it has far more restrictive hours), the primary audience of the

Marketplace is the student population. More specifically, it targets students who have housing at

UCF; they're the most likely to frequent it, particularly on the weekends. It's also the focus of the

space's advertising; information on meal plans is prominently displayed outside and inside the

Marketplace.

In any case, the Marketplace's main goal is to efficiently serve food to a large number of

students. With a fairly limited amount of space, I'd argue it has managed to do just that. The

Marketplace can be divided into three different areas: the actual lunchroom, which is placed

directly at its entrance, and two dining halls on each side. The lunchroom area can be further

divided into several different spaces where food is served (or "food stations" as I will be

referring to them). The types of food at these food stations include: Pizza, deli sandwiches, salad,

grilled offerings, hand-fried food, home-style meals, and dessert.

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There are two main attributes about the Marketplace that prevent the buildup of long

lines. For one, four of the seven food stations I mentioned above (specifically pizza, deli

sandwiches, salad, and dessert) can be manually served by the student without the assistance of a

lunchroom worker. The second design decision to prevent buildup has to do with the remaining

three food stations; they are separated from each other by a great deal of space. This means long

lines from one section of the lunchroom rarely intersect with others. It's a testament to the space

that it is able to do this with a relatively small area.

The Marketplace is also constructed to provide easy access to the attending students. It

could, to a degree, be considered an example of universal design, which Jay Dolmage describes

during a speech on the subject as "advocating the use of multiple and flexible strategies to

address the needs of all students." Simply put, Universal Design's main goal is to make it so that

students of all sorts can have a nearly identical experience in a space. For the purposes of this

essay, I examined whether a person in a wheelchair would have additional problems with the

Marketplace's structure.

Fortunately, I didn't find this to be the case for the most part. The lunchroom itself is

fairly small, but there's enough space in-between the food stations that it doesn't seem to present

a problem for navigation. One potential hang-up comes from the height at which the food is

placed; the deli sandwiches, for example, are about four feet off the ground, and placed behind a

plastic screen. This could present some difficulties; fortunately, lunchroom workers are available

at each one of these areas that might present problems, so this is mostly a minor issue. Seating is

also pretty accommodating, as most of the tables have chairs that can be pulled away (aside from

a few booths).

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The areas where the Marketplace tends to falter in its design has less to do with its actual

space and more to do with where it's positioned within UCF. As stated, the Marketplace's

primary audience are students that have housing at UCF, so it would make sense to place it

equidistant from the various living communities. Instead, it's placed disproportionately close to

the Apollo community (right next to it, in fact), which leaves students from other communities

with a significantly longer travel time. There was also a puzzling decision made to put the

student bathrooms outside of the Marketplace proper; this seems like more of a shrewd business

decision than anything else.

The Marketplace also aspires to create an atmosphere that can be appreciated by the

majority of students. That might sound counter-intuitive at first glance, especially considering

the myriad of differences between groups of students, but it's actually a fairly simple solution;

each dining hall has an entirely different intent. The dining hall on the right is slightly larger, and

it's intended to appeal to students that want to eat fairly quickly before heading to their next class

or activity. In contrast, the dining hall on the left is slightly smaller and designed for students that

want to remain there for a long period of time, whether just to study or talk with other people.

This is indicated by the fact that a section of the room is actually obscured, providing somewhat

of a sound buffer from the rest of the Marketplace.