Chris El Murr

Trading Spaces is the master's graduation topic of Chris el Murr from the "Architecture Academy in Maastricht." The project is a retrospect of Europeans' socioeconomic choices over a few centuries, highlighting the long debate between "vanity and virtue", "capitalism and communism", "free marketeers and environmentalists." The thesis addresses capitalism as our current economic and political system, its benefits, and its cons. Reform capitalism is a suggested solution in the paper, which the author tries to
prove in the last chapter. In his paper, Chris suggests the following:

1. The solution is to draw on the best aspects of consumerism and Highmindedness, without suffering their worst sides: Moral decadence and Profound Poverty.
2. A developed society allows consumer spending by providing employment and welfare.
3. Reducing the need of making money off exploitative and vain consumer appetite.
4. Generating profits from helping people as consumers and producers in the more critical and ambitious aspect of their lives.
5. Shopping for something other than nonsense. Creating a new kind of consumerism where the economy focuses on selling services and goods for higher needs.
6. Allowing consumers to be involved in the production of goods and have an insight
   into the art of making, resulting in a more valuable appreciation to the product.
7. Tackling happiness in all aspects and focusing on personal development.

Chris decides to test his theory by learning a new skill (baking), opening a bakery and building a community around it. The bakery moved from Chris's house to a collective space. As the bakery grew and new members joined the team, the layout of the bakery changed, and so did the production's choreography. The bakery addressed the challenges of a commercial kitchen from a practical architectural approach, such as a storage area, an outdoor selling point with a hydraulic canopy and PVC tiles for easy
wall cleaning and maintaining hygiene.

The anatomical model is a detailed annotation of the bakery, baking, mixing, prepping, storing, and customer service. Trading Spaces manifested physically and spatially into an existing bakery, "Chris's Micro-Bakery" in Maastricht.

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