top of page

Project 2- Urban Farm

Snapchat-594276566.jpg
From Conception to Final Renderings

YEAR 1 - 

CamScanner 08-28-2020 15.17.35 - Page 21

The 'Urban Farm' project took place on a site in Short Hill close to my Nottingham Trent university campus.  With planning ahead to build a series of office buildings in what was then, a car park, I went ahead to find another potential option for the site's future . 

The brief we were given was to create an urban farm which was self dependent, self sustainable, and run by the local community and tradesmen in the area. It would have to feature a café, garden spaces for the production and use of various crops and vegetables on site, and other features relating to children's education, and animal farming. 

Wormeries are aquaponics fish farming solutions were to be used to aid the growth of vegetables -with root systems heavily reliant on being submerged in nutrient-rich water-, keep bees to pollenate the flora on site and also produce wares to sell in a related market stall project, and a chicken coop for egg and meat production. 

 

The challenge was to make the space for work and maintenance symbiotic with the passing tourism and school trips coming to learn about modern methods of farming in the context of an urban landscape.  

The project once again began with site research and space theorizing, in accordance to the given areas of space allocated to each required component of this facility. 

CamScanner 08-28-2020 15.17.35 - Page 20
CamScanner 08-28-2020 15.17.35 - Page 16
Snapchat-419066270_edited.jpg
IMG_20190307_205509_236_edited.jpg
Screenshot_20200902-222346_edited.jpg
CamScanner 08-30-2020 15.57.41 - Page 3.
CamScanner 08-28-2020 15.17.35 - Page 17

A more challenging site model was required for this project due to its city-based location, and it was a good difficulty curve from Project 1. Digimap software aided me in reducing the building on and around site into basic blocks, that were printed out to scale via the same software. Estimations as to height of the surrounding architecture were made by either using photographs from the site visit or Google Maps Street View and measuring by counting bricks. 

Digimaps could also create topography maps to deduce the terrain and the elevation of the stairs coming down from Short Hill to the small residential district,  the business and private offices being located at the top. 

Photographing the model in the Heliodon was also beneficial in determining the sunlight exposure on the empty site due to the heights of the surrounding context.

A massing model of the potential spaces and general shape of the intended installation could be experimented in blue foam since the area of the space in my model was now known, and I could then subject my massing iterations to additional sun lighting tests, and explore the possible uses of each area depending on whether they should be 'front of house' or not. 

Snapchat-927324960_edited.jpg
Snapchat-1898495101_edited.jpg
Snapchat-507017430_edited.jpg

Presentation of the final scheme required final renders in elevation down the slope of Short Hill, a long elevation down the length of the site, and plans for every floor, as well as models working from blue foam up through cardboard iterations, to the final Perspex and plastic version. 

The sun-kissed side of the scheme with lighting coming from across the empty car park was glass curtain wall spanning two floors, and featured a tree trunk/root system motif in timber across the building's length to illustrate -in an abstract way- the purpose and contents of the building. foliage would also spill over the brick parapets on the roof gardens to simulate that the scheme has been overgrown and taken back to the environment, but to also indicate the purpose of the installation. 

Disabled access is plentiful through the site with restrictions only to two of the roof garden terraces and the greenhouse, but the main entrance building to the downstairs reception and locker rooms had passage all the way through to the Short Hill shortcut, allowing for a thoroughfare for commuters as well as longer staying visitors. Catering is provided on the first floor, as is housing on the second floor, for a regular maintenance family to operate the site and its features as a museum of sorts, leading the example in self-sufficient zero-waste architecture.  

IMG_20190307_205806_692_edited.jpg
CamScanner%2008-28-2020%2015.17_edited.j
IMG-20190207-WA0006_edited.jpg
IMG-20190207-WA0016_edited.jpg
IMG_20190307_210418_609_edited.jpg
Screenshot_20200902-222352_edited.jpg
bottom of page