"Blurring the Line Between the Natural and the Man-Made"
This project focused on rejuvinating the condition of site, which previously hosted a gasholder and has therefore been polluted for decades with gasworks, as well as bringing together the neighbourhood by providing them with a welcoming and communal space.
To achieve this, I proposed to introduce a community garden onsite, which would continue to passively bioremediate the soil (after extensive remediation beforehand) and provide a community enriching activity. Additionally, the site would feature restaurants whose selling point would be that they mainly rely on the community garden's produce for their menu; this would also cater to support the economical aspect of the neighbourhood by providing jobs and and income flow in the area.
The particularity of my proposal is to have the restaurants be located inside greenhouses, so as to have the clients be completely immersed within the nature surrounding them, allowing the community to reconnect with this abandoned site. I placed a heavy focus on creating an environmentally sustainable design, being very mindful of material choice and sourcing, as well as implementing many passive heating and cooling systems, supported by sustainable mechanical heating and cooling sources (eg. using the nearvy canal and biomass boilers), so as to ultimately minimise the carbon footprint of the design.
The greenhouses being translucent in nature, would make it difficult to distinguish where they begin and end amongst the nature and foliage surrounding them, hence contributing to a sense of blur between the natural and the man-made, both visually and symbolically.
