FOLDED GARDEN
Second Year Studio, Fall 2014
Objective: keep a plant alive through the first frost of the year. Design a protective armature with a membrane (heat-shrink plastic) and frame (piano wire, yupo paper) structure. Explore strategies for folding and connection details.
Meets basic needs through simple but effective design: drainage, sun exposure, warmth, air flow.
Allows easy access to the plant while still achieving an optimally protective armature, through a removable hood. The custom folding pattern used is flexible, modified slightly between the support base and the ribs to enhance the paper’s structural capacity for various roles.
Conforms intimately with site for support and inspiration. A third dimension of the project engages passersby in delight of the plant, by capturing the colored lights that shine on the Hunt Library mullions. The folding pattern used is designed to throw back the light in a varied and playful manner.
URBAN AGRICULTURE CENTER
The prompt is a community center to engage a reviving neighborhood in growing practices. Includes diagram studies and documents with developed strategies of construction, materials, and organization. Explores the potentials of urban farming.
Emits what it is to grow in the city as a community, from every element of its construction.
Creates a sense of community in and around the growing: the language of site organization reflects the natural systems in the planting beds and greenhouse.
Produces a self-supporting system, where everything comes together under the umbrella of rainwater collection. The roofs and raised beds exaggerate the systems, to communicate what the center is about.
