This design research project rethinks the ecologies of public space in order to foster alternate cultures of food trade, consumption and production in urban settings. The project focuses on a vacant site which was once the Maori Hostelry and market place on the foreshore of Auckland’s Mechanic’s Bay (Waipapa). The site is located at a key historical cross-point running between Constitution Hill, The Strand, Parnell Rise and Stanley Street. Now given over predominantly to car parks and fast paced traffic entering the Grafton Gully motorway system, the site is particularly pedestrian-unfriendly, and rather than serving as a link to Parnell to the east it effects a break in Auckland’s built fabric. The project pursues an urban market - growing site, educational outreach facility and new pedestrianized public space linkages between the city, Parnell and its new train station.