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Celebrating Communal Urban Metabolism

Part 2 Project 2022
Emily-Rose Moya Garnett
Oxford Brookes University Oxford | UK
Architecture is part of an ecosystem connected to a complex urban metabolism, yet our built environment detaches us from these critical life sustaining systems.

This project seeks to reconnect people with these urban metabolic systems. It aims to give communities decentralised control over the management of their resources, helping them to achieve greater social cohesion and transition to a localised circular economy. A network of infrastructures which metabolise water, energy, food and different waste streams, are hybridised with community uses to better integrate society with its systems.

Newham was chosen for the project due to poor recycling rates, major development plans and ambitions to transition to a circular economy. The building is deliberately celebratory, forming an iconic part of Canning Town’s cityscape, representing a move towards a more sustainable future. Within the landscape of the buildings the community become aware of the vibrations of the equipment, pumping of the water and smells of the waste, making the building a sensory and educational experience, intended to drive behaviour change.

This project is a pilot manifestation of the idea of communal urban metabolisms that is intended to be implemented in multiple locations, eventually becoming a new approach to sustainable urban development.


Tutor(s)


Mr Toby Shew
2022
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