Serjeant Award for Excellence in Drawing
Situated at the southern extremities of the Lea Valley, the project cross-programmes industry, housing, leisure and agriculture.
The project critiques the Tabula Rasa development of this site by Olympic Government Agencies, producing a woven, fragile layer of lace that flutters over the existing terrain. The landscape recycles waste from the Capital ring Sewer, thus creating a symbiotic intervention that supports a transient community of urban-farmers below.
The vision of this project transcends the confines of the site and envisages the growth of this linear farm tracking the Ring, eventually creating a green belt circumventing inner London.
The brief to design an inhabited farm for a transient population at the base of the Lea Valley, invited us to both explore sustainability issues and recognise the plight of existing local industry in the light of the global venture, the Olympic Games.
In juxtaposing two worlds: a veiled, subterranean world of filtered and shadowy forms, and above a romantic landscape of the sky, clouds and dreams, 21st Century Symbiotic Farm creates a new terrain above the existing landscape, extending the Capital Ring to become a continuous horizon between the sky and life of the inhabited domain below.