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BreadSpace: Building a Community One Bake at a Time

Part 1 Project 2024
Muhannad Al Lawati
Newcastle University | UK
By focusing on the concept of bread—a fundamental food—this project envisions a community hub and social enterprise on the High Street in Sunderland that combines a community bakery and retreat. Leveraging the product and process of breadmaking to offer mental health support in a non-clinical setting and equitable access to quality food while promoting "bread literacy" to educate about the breadmaking process and the origins of ingredients. It explores sustainable food production methods, utilising local resources in salt production and small-batch flour milling to advocate for simple, healthy, less processed, affordable food.

Juxtaposing characters of rigidity and fluidity are central to the design concept. A modular timber frame structure represents the notion of rigidity and stems from Sunderland's historic landscape of shipyards. The fluidity mimics the softness of dough, a glutenised concoction of flour, water and yeast. When explored in conjunction, the results are expressions of tension. When spatialised, the resultant forms are a series of 'dough pods', creating quiet spaces to reflect or participate in counselling.

The proposal aims to foster social change by reimagining how high streets can better serve local communities, transforming them into spaces that nourish social interaction, education, and well-being.

Muhannad Al Lawati

Tutor(s)

2024
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