Caitlin Taylor — architect, farmer, and founder of Midcourse Design & Development — is in good traffic this week for a conversation about the missing middle of America's food system, and why architects need to understand farming, supply chains, and retail, en route to rebuilding regional infrastructure.

We also touch on: Why architects rarely work on food infrastructure. The lived experience of running a certified organic farm. How Mass Design Group shaped her practice model. The missing middle between industrial and direct-to-consumer. Why most food businesses operate despite the built environment, not because of it. Regional processing as the bottleneck. Fiddleheads co-op in New London, Connecticut as an exemplar. Why independently owned grocery stores are so rare. Grocery store layout and fresh versus shelf-stable ratios. Projects coming soon that will demonstrate the Midcourse model.

Timeline:

00:00 Caitlin Taylor is in good traffic.

05:35 The multidisciplinary studio model.

07:24 Weaving architecture, operations, planning, and finance.

08:02 How Caitlin started Midcourse.

08:39 Being both an architect and a farmer.

09:31 Living on a certified organic farm.

10:19 The food world as a small, networked community.

11:11 Only architect in a room of farmers, only farmer in a room of architects.

12:02 When the realization happened.

13:04 Husband becoming a farmer while Caitlin was in grad school.

13:39 The wacky idea that food system architecture mattered.

14:21 Joining Mass Design Group in 2016.

14:41 Founding the Food Systems Design Lab.

16:59 Testing what role architecture plays in regional food systems.

20:53 Why Caitlin left Mass to start Midcourse.

25:31 The missing middle of food infrastructure.

31:15 Processing, storage, distribution, aggregation.

37:00 Why regional infrastructure disappeared.

43:03 Globalized consolidation and economies of scale.

49:21 Making regional systems economically viable.

55:12 How architects can help food businesses.

56:01 Grocery stores as museums of regional food.

56:48 Seasonal eating and living with the seasons.

57:17 Fresh versus packaged shelf ratios.

58:04 Where to see this in action.

58:27 Fiddleheads co-op in New London, Connecticut.

59:35 Independently owned cooperative grocery stores.

1:00:25 Why co-ops are so rare and often fail.

1:01:23 The commute question.

1:01:55 200 feet from kitchen to farm wash station.

1:03:02 Wrapping up.

Links:

More on Midcourse.