Posted on

Potential functions

Here I have quickly sketches different functions that my hybrid building design can have. These functions aim to help the building be self-sufficient and sustainable.

Pink – Recycling/art studios and workshops

These workshops will encourage creative minds to engage in artwork with recycled materials. There could be workshops that help people fix what is broken or renovate furniture. Capitalising on this idea of reduce, reuse, recycle. Fixing and repairing rather than throwing away.

Blue – Restaurants

Restaurants within the building could utilise the gardening spaces or the vertical farms to have fresh food for their dishes.

Green – Vertical farming

Vertical farming within the building can help produce food markets within the building or in surrounding areas.

Orange – Education

Education within this building could be for art education on reuse of materials or how to grow crops.

Yellow – Shops/businesses

These shops and businesses could be put into place if they are selling creations made from recycled materials to encourage others to renovate rather than throw away. They could sell produce that they grow including fruit/vegetables/flowers.

Purple – Animal keeping

Gardening areas could be used to host animals that can provide food to residents. Bee keeping will be helpful in producing honey. Chickens can give us eggs. Quail can help remove insects and bugs from crops if they are in gardening areas, they can also provide natural fertiliser (same with chickens). More intensive animal keeping can include keeping cows, goats and pigs. Cows and goats could provide milk and natural fertiliser. Pigs can help by eating food waste and producing natural fertilisers. These animals may be slightly ambitious.

Red – Communal gardens

Communal gardens can give residents the opportunity to grow their own crops and give them access to fresh food or to provide to local food banks.

Posted on

Beginning sketches

Looking at using large spaces, this car park seems to be a good potential site based on my found statistics. Many people in Peckham do not own a car, this space can be utilised to benefit Peckham in a different way.

Taking the use of bridges from the precedent by Kengo Kuma, the bridges in my concept would link different buildings. It would allow direct links to different areas.

To incorporate the use of farming, there could be a floor dedicated to indoor vertical farming and a floor dedicated to outdoor farming. The indoor farms would allow for fruits and vegetables that need a hot climate to be grown all year round.

A unique concept is the first one below. The building could be make up of a unique shape rotated on a single point. These could create steps on the outside of the building leading to the top. There could be bridges to each building with platforms coming off them that can be used for outdoor farming, garden or greenery space.

Posted on

Urban Agriculture & The Pandemic

For our first dissertation meeting we were tasked with writing an abstract and creating a mood board of our interests. My main interest is urban agriculture. As you can see from below I have included projects, that if you’re interested in nature in cities, you should take a look at: The Farmhouse and The Vertical Farm. I have included important quotes (written below) from the interviews and documentaries that I have watched that have inspired me to undertake this topic for my dissertation.

I had the assumption when researching for my dissertation project that I would want to write about climate change and sustainability only. I researched into urban agriculture and I realised that it is an essential method for us to begin to do to help climate change and the incoming global food crisis.

David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet

“Right now, we’re facing a manmade disaster of global scale.”

“So, what do we do? It’s quite straight forward. It’s been staring us in the face all along. To restore stability to our planet, we must restore it’s biodiversity.”

“If we take care of nature, nature will take care of us.”

“When it comes to the land, we must radically reduce the area we use to farm, so that we can make space for returning wilderness.”

– David Attenborough, natural historian.

True Garden

“I can control the environment, I control the water, I control the nutrients. I love this, I can control every aspect of growing my own food.”

– Troy Albright, CEO of True Garden

“The vegetables we saw growing at True Garden were just growing, right there. There was no soil, there was minimal water. It was really just their roots hanging in these hollow tubes, being saturated in nutirents and substances and growing to be the most beautiful vegetables.”

– Lauren Kelly Piergallini, reporter

The Plummery

“One of the most important steps that we’ve done is used the raised vegetables beds. When we are eating that much produce, it’s really important. So we can have clean soil that has been brought in. We also know that lead doesn’t generally transfer into fruits so this beautiful blood plum behind us is totally safe to eat from.”

“Much of the composting happens in situ just by chopping the branches and leaving them on the ground underneath the plant.”

“One of the things that’s so concerning about the state that we’re in at the moment is so many people are losing that connection to the land. So The Plummery has been an experiment in how can we regain that connection to food in the city.”

– Kat Lavers, permaculture designer and educator