Reintroducing Food

Site Context

In its proximity to Pawtucket's public transportation hub, city hall, and info center (which all lie almost directly across the Blackstone River), as well as two neighboring high schools and the potential of the Blackstone Bike Path - the Blackstone Ave site possesses a large potential for active pedestrian access. In addition to this potential, the easy accessibility by freeway 95 presents a strong vehicular approach to the site.

Initial Observations

A strange detail on the site that caught my attention was a large circular opening in a masonry wall. Built to house a large industrial fan, still in place, but boarded up long ago, a small silver of light cuts between wood planks and steel blades to let a minuscule shred of sun filter down into the industrial thread room. Studying this detail (below) allowed me to understand the structure as more than just a series of disconnected, uncommunicative rooms. Instead I begun to understand that there were moments in the structure where the building almost de-laminated from itself (below)- pushing itself up or out to present its odd planes as strange sun surfaces. To better understand these quirky moments and potential continuities between spaces, I studied the structural grain of the two buildings (below).

Viability of Vertical Farming

After group work, where a proposal focusing on the urban agricultural center's role as acentermore than a production zone was explored, I came back to individual work questioning the viability of vertical farming. While the profit of vertical farming is much much higher per foot over normal farms, the energy use by heating and lights and the massive water requirement (in an structure not precisely up to the challenges of massive weight additions) presented themselves as serious problems. So, what's wrong with the way we farm now? As identified by a earlier group study (posted earlier in this blog) the distance between production and consumption presents both a massive carbon footprint and a massive disconnect. Yet, (all) transportation is only 3rd in the list of contributors to the greenhouse gases. First is energy production and second is livestock. The curious thing is- Americans, on average, eat 7 times as much meat as the FDA recommends. Many studies have been drawing links between lifestyle diseases (heart disease, diabetes, some cancers) and countries with high meat consumption, such as America. The question then, perhaps, is the question of diet. It's the reintroduction of food into our culture. The idea that food is not merely what we eat, but what we grow, or what is grown and that we buy, what we cook, what we eat, and even what we recycle.

Program

The program, then, of my proposal provides the means to begin this cultural shift. It exists in two cycles: education and purchasing (see below). The educational cycle is broken down in three zones: 1. making- the ability to adapt ones built environment (at its most essential level- a shop), 2. growing- facilities to lend actual experience to various types of growing (seedling nursery, dark light growing with mushrooms, hydroponics, aquaponics and seasonal growing), and 3. cooking- the ability to both cook and the knowledge what to cook (at its most essential level- a cooking space with demonstration room). The purchasing has two tracts: 1. market- answering the very pertinent question of availability (supported by a private hydroponic system), 2. cafe- offering a food option for the quite local high schoolers roaming for lunch. (All diagrammed below).

Stents (or the intervention)

Then if the program is to reflect different stages in this cultural understanding of food, the proposal is then to expose connections between the different programs. As one is purchasing food, how can they be aware of the means by which their very food is being produced? Massive green walls (green in diagram below) align themselves to the previously identified planes of light the buildings idiosyncratically provide, to cut between floors and program. Like a stent, they open the buildings along the seams of grain, breaking spaces previously conceived as one-story singularities into two-story connective tissues. Some exist externally, some step inside for non-seasonal growing and as a response the grain weakens between them and the sun, allowing edible growth. Similarly, the pedestrian edge opens to the vehicular edge, and circulation is allowed directly through the site with a weak-grain circulation path (yellow in diagram below).

Concept diagram- disconnected spaces with planes of light connected with vertical green walls and circulation path

Plans

Unfolded elevations cut through center of site running north south

Unfolded elevations diagrammed

Site plan with winter solstice shadows cast

Sectional perspective through circulation path

Street-Side Aquaponics

My site is Blackstone avenue in Pawtucket which has two structures, one immense Brick building pretty regular in its shape and another wood framed building which is a oddly planned building.

It is situated between river and a high school, and also in between industrial area and commercial area. A bike path has been proposed along the riverside.

I started by studying the site and one thing i was intrigued by was how much roof access there was. and how moss was growing on some of them so i did a detail of this moment. So roof access was always one of the strategies that i wanted to keep throughout the project.

My site differs from the other two in that the two buildings are divided by a sloping passageway that only had one entrance and exit. So an idea was presented to open up the other end of the passage to create access the school as well as open up a passage through the wood framed building to create access and visibility to the river.

With these moves made, now the next thing to do was finding a way to make this new street that had been created visually pleasing. Designing the facades of the building as well as how the street level was programed was extremely important.

Facade & Street Studies

Since there were two buildings I decided that my program would be based on two factors, education and production. So the wood framed building became a very open layout in which you were visually connected to all the parts of the aquaponics systems so that you are able to fully grasp how it works. On the left side of the drawing you can see how the water travels fr the fish pools up to the growing beds and then filters down the system through the dirt which cleans the water and then back down to the pond. On the right side of the drawing you can see how the water goes from the fish tank to the plants and the to he cleaning water tank.

Roof Growing as Well as Interior Passage Layout

Turn the grain, shove it out the window

The Providence Fruit and Produce Warehouse building had very odd proportions: 900+ft long, 90ft deep and three stories, 2 above grade and one below. A bay structure approx 15' wide in the long axis and 20' in the short is extended along the entire length of the building. The proposal put forth focuses on the 15' wide bay by the 60' deep (depth of building). Developing the single bay allows a modular system to gang bays together to create lager or smaller production areas to invite different scales of production within the larger building. While the north facade is preserved and used as a public entrance the south facade is stripped down to the essential structure and glazed. The 2nd floor plate and roof are punched through as well to allow for more light into the building. Growing trays are packed into the interior space on the 1st and 2nd floors. These trays are built on a sliding system which allows for access to the beds. In summer the south facade is opened and the trays on the 1st floor are pushed though the facade to access maximum light. The grade on the south facade is brought down to cellar level and outdoor grow beds are accessed from that level. A rain collection and aquaponics / hydroponics system are housed in the cellar level as well as planing and work space. The north edge of the 1st and 2nd floor are earmarked for public needs, i.e. selling of produce, education, kitchens, etc.

public integrity with verticality

91 Hartford is a large, rectangular, brick building with 34 bays.
It is situated between freeway & river, and also in between industrial area and commercial area with bike path that runs between these areas.
I started by making a model of this building in an abstract way, which depicts the repetition of small elements. I was intrigued by how this large building is made up with small repetitions of column grid, bays, and windows. I saw each window as an aperture for the light.

As I began to think real about this building that holds vertical farm program, I rotated the abstract model in side. I found the perforated plate as a continuous vertical structure where it could be used as growing medium. The plants grow vertically and are oriented to catch and harness the light while clinging to the columns and beams in the building. I am trying to use the existing columns, beams, wall as the armature for the plant growing.
Each floor has different growing system. There are fish tanks on the first floor that are used to pump up the water to the aquaponic systems on the second floor. There are hanging bucket growing beds on the second floor, and vine trees are growing on the 4th floor. Floor plates are carved out as much as they can to allow deeper light to come through. Thereore, different density of growing beds (fewer beds on the top denser beds on the bottom) creates openess vertically to pull light from the top and let the light hit the growing surfaces and bounce.


As well as bringing light into the building, I wanted to bring public to engage the building with plants, sturucutre, and light. (continuous public thread woven into the building) The public walks along the arcade on the south side, where the new skin is created with vines growing, and enters the building to go up to the upper floors, where there are public class rooms. While the arcade is covered with vines, the row of windows in the class rooms are used as a learning method for window farming. I am trying to create moments where pieces of the building are exposed at something new or transforms with greenery.

Constructing the Courtyard

concept: Constructing an interior courtyard to make better sense of the space between two disjointed buildings. The courtyard would serve as the educational core, providing a gathering space for demonstrations as well as outdoor seating as well as being the circulation core for the new site. This building has the possibility for great density on the perimeter. The skin of the building would have light weight louvers that reflect light into the interior space and vertical planter beds would diffuse that light creating balanced light for intermixed working spaces.

How to Build a Greenhouse in 18 Days

How to Build a Greenhouse in 18 Days from brady gunnell on Vimeo.

The greenhouse was built for NEW URBAN FARMERS at their Jefferson Avenue community garden. Almost all the materials were re-purposed from old buildings or construction sites.

Assignment 4_ Tree of House-Urban Agriculture Center, Providence RI

The Metaphor

The painting “tree of houses” by Paul Klee is the image for tree preserves energy to produce food to nurture people inhabited in the neighborhood.

This explains how urban agriculture center in providence serves as a place for people growing their own food, learning new acqaponic techniques, and exchange ideas& foods.

The break

RI 6 runs across the neighborhood and divides it to residential and industrial area. UAC here as the extension of the place for people to live, will carry the urban fabrics and bring the familiarity in the originally old textile mill.

The density

The tree is defined by aquaponics planting beds, circulation, and void space for light go through. Punitively, the numbers of trees will gradually be reduces toward north as it face the industrial areas. By section, the roof with photovoltaic cell attached on clear glass will be tilted toward south to get direct sunlight. The density of PV cells gradually increased toward north. Because the south part of the building is denser of plating beds, and need more sunlight.

Programmatically, there will be more traffic toward south with functions such as, market, public food production (witch you can rent your own planting beds) café’, while the north part will be more industrial and less traffic for compost, private office and warm cast.

The Public Facade

To make the south façade as a new gesture for public, there’ s a new staircase with exterior growing beds lead people from parking lot directly to their own planting beds in 2F and 3F. It is also an open-air market feature with swing doors that can unfold to become table, bench, and shade during a hot summer day.