Obiviously the cues as to what I was pointing at and indicating is lost lost here, but this is roughly what I discussed, plus added detail when pointing out particular items.

Adaptive Production

40 years age there was a surge in utopian dreams spurred by space exploration, social, economic and resource crisis. In particular these dreams explored how we might live and eat in the future. Today we are again focusing on these issues. Adaptive production draws from the excitement and imagination from both these past visions and current utopian ideas to suggest a pathway for a more viable evolution of food production, consumption and distribution in cities.

Adaptive production is architecture as a facilitator, container, protector and an advertisement for local food. The project brings industrial food production back into the city and back into the hands of the community by coupling it with public transport infrastructure. Adaptive production envelopes traditionally shunned and under used corridors of land and transforms it into a highly productive and multi-purpose space.

The project pads the noise and disturbance of transport infrastructure while adding to public amenity with cycling and pedestrian pathways, public space and greened corridor spaces. Food would be grown-over these spaces, then sold and distributed around the city using the traditionally people-only public transport system. The transport infrastructure* and the food production above it* collide at train station nodes to form these public distribution and consumption areas, including markets and leased retail spaces. 

A path towards a Food Network
Adaptive production stems from a current Food Hubs project by Steve Mushin which utilising an aquaponics food growing system. Aquaponics is a closed-loop system which uses the fish effluent to fertilise the water the plants grow in who in turn clean the water before it is returned to the fish ponds.

The Food Hubs program is a reasonably low-cost project that are starting to be rolled out on vacant land. This project would be used as a catalyst to pave the way for larger projects like Adaptive Production. Food Hubs would start by populating under-utilised lands around key train stations, helping to promote and engage local communities with local food production and consumption.

It is reasonable to believe that existing public transport infrastructures will under-go large scale upgrades in the next 50 to 100 years, so it is proposed that Adaptive Production could be incorporated in this process.  First train station nodes that have been infiltrated with the Food Hubs programs could be upgraded and then the system would spread to train station nodes that connect with other modes of transport. Eventually Adaptive production would spread out over the entire public transport system, creating a vast and resilient food distribution network. The network would include larger nodes in currently lower-density areas especially suburban/rural fringe which could connect up larger scale food production catchments* with the train-distribution network.

As a case study for the system I have picked out Coburg Train Station, a currently low-density area with plenty of vacant and under utilised land adjacent to a large shopping and retail precinct.
The central Coburg area is also ear-marked by the local council to be heavily redeveloped, increasing the population by 6,000 for 2020. Here is an overview of Coburg’s current density and here is it’s density post-2020, with Adaptive Production inserted in around the year 2050.

A Flexible System
The building structure can stretch or contract to fit available land and provide the maximum growing and public spaces within it’s envelope. At times the site will be so thin that only the transport corridors and a combined pedestrian and cycling path may be housed underneath the growing space.  At wider areas open public spaces would form, creating parks and other mutli-purpose spaces for community gathering and small scale animal rearing.

The program for each train station node is flexible to suit the local context, including the leasing of growing beds* to local producers to grow and tailor their produce to local demands and local scrutiny. The idea being to reconnect people with the food they eat, including how it is grown and who grows it. This community interaction and passive governance is encouraged through markets, the traditional public space and forum, as well as embracing technology and having a virtual presence which would allow the public and other producers alike to connect with each other.

A Layered System
The skin is a light weight translucent structure inspired by the self-supporting faceted nature of folded paper. The material is imagined to be a composite-fibre sandwich material of the future, that forms a greenhouse-like roof and nurtures a controlled growing environment. The faceted skin also allows for climate control through ventilation and air-flow control and collects rain water through structural pores and guttered edges into underground storage tanks.

This skin structure also flares up at entrance areas allowing for produce loading and also over road crossings. Under this skin is the growing space which extends across the width of the structure to maximise area and then comes down to connect and intermingle with markets and the distribution area at train station nodes using escalator-like conveyor belts.

On the ground and train station level the growing area disperses into terraced fruit trees over-top of public toilets and administration spaces, which also mediate the entrance to the central train station and distribution area, creating a lush, busy and food-diverse space. These trees would then be fertilised using compost onsite made from human and animal waste in a permaculture-style system. The market and small scale retail tenancies spread out from here and their sloping roof spaces can be used for small animal and fowl raising.

Along the station and market edges loading docks for local road distribution, greened edges including further fruit trees, as well as cycling and pedestrian pathways are formed which follow the transport corridor as far as practical.

To screen and buffer these pathways and their adjacent public spaces a faceted landscape is created to house support systems and mechanical services, including composting, fish food growing, bio-energy generation and general onsite recycling.

The core structure, which holds up the growing space and weaves amongst the market spaces, also delivers the servicing around the project. The structure would be wrapped in ‘plug and play’ water, data and electricity cables, allowing flexibility in market and retail spaces and circulating the water around the aquaponics system.

Finally, sunken into the ground are the aquaponics fish ponds accessible from the public spaces, making them aware of being part of the system, and also used as a buffer and dividing element between public spaces and the transport infrastructure. Water features are also incorporated into the ponds to oxygenate the water for the fish. Buried underground are the large rain water storage tanks which are used to service the building and also top-up the fish ponds.

The Future
Nobody really knows what the future holds, especially in times of projected crisis, however it is unrealistic to assume, as some past utopia’s suggest, that we will start from scratch and create new cities. Adaptive production draws from utopias that suggest insertions into existing fabrics, like the domes of Buckminster Fuller and large infrastructures such as Archigram’s plug-in city as well as the exciting new worlds of technology explored in sci-fi media like the artwork of Syd Mead. Adaptive Production seeks combine elements of the past, present and (projected) future, bringing back the face-to-face interaction of the market to re-humanise industrial food production and also incorporate new technology and sustainable living. The scheme is a pragmatic utopia, a large scale project that evolves from current projects to retro-fit local food production into the dense urban fabric of the future, not creating a new world but reshaping the one we have.

Adaptive production.

40 years ago the media and architects alike turned their attentions to utopian agricultural visions in response to looming threats of environmental and economic collapse. Today, this focus has returned. Drawing on the utopias of 40 years ago, this project locates itself 40 years into the future, attempting to utilize utopian optimism to map a viable (non-utopian) evolution of food production.

Adaptive production proposes an accessible and localised food network incorporating public transport infrastructure. The scheme stems from a current Food Hubs program, utilising an aquaponics growing system, and places itself in Melbourne’s denser, future urban fabric. An adaptive greenhouse-skin envelopes existing transport corridors, revitalising currently under-used land. This skin nurtures an elevated growing space that feeds into the public amenities of public transport infrastructure. Transport, food and public space collide at Train Station nodes forming market places, ripe with interaction, education and consumption. These nodes enable direct public contact with industrial food production, promoting awareness and creating a community regulated food production organism for the future.

Another look at the project brief, in brief!

40 years ago the media and architects alike, for a time, turned their attentions to utopian agricultural visions in response to the looming danger of environmental and economic collapse. Today there is again a focus on environmental and sustainability concerns, a climate ripe for agricultural speculation. Drawing away from past utopian visions we can begin to map real trajectories towards an evolution of food production.

Adaptive production concerns itself with re-connecting people with their food production through an accessible and localised food network incorporating public transport infrastructure. The scheme stems from a current Food Hubs program, utilising an aquaponics growing system, and places itself in Melbourne’s future, denser, urban fabric. An adaptive greenhouse-skin envelopes existing transport corridors nurturing an elevated growing space and adding public amenity and pathways to public transport infrastructure and it’s currently under-used lands. Transport, food and public space collide at Train Station nodes forming market places, ripe with interaction, education and consumption. Through re-introducing direct points of sale and local producers these nodes re-humanise industrial food production, promote food awareness and create a community regulated food production organism for the future.

The major criticism from the review was that the scheme seemed to be
“just a roof”.
You were advised to approach the ideology of the project with a grain
of salt – and focus on what you are proposing as an architect.
The continued presence of the sci-fi images was remarked upon and you
were asked to address, and develop, the significance of these for your
project.
Like Jason: what sort of proposition are you constructing here? What
antecedents might you relate your project to? How would it sit in a
history of related propositional architectures?

It is difficult to tell how much of the sentiment was against ‘the roof’ and how much was not being able to clearly distinguish the other programs within the project.

The focus of the ‘ideology’ refers more to the presentation I guess, how much time spent explaining where the project has come from etc. vs. the actual project itself. One thing I perhaps have not spent enough time thinking/talking about it the architectural intent of ‘the roof’ form, the idea of folded surfaces interested me because it gave a greater structural integrity to a thin medium, the type of material I wished to use to form the roof of the greenhouse, and also the folds could be used to catch, collect and channel water, as well as potentially also incorporating other passive design ideas. This idea of folded, triangluated surfaces then turned into the inner structural system, which perhaps at this stage is too ‘pipey’ I would like to suggest or re-assert it’s ‘surfaces’ rather than just it’s joints or edges, however I am thinking these ‘pipes’ won’t just be structure but also the servicing cores for both the aquaponics system and other systems associated with the other programs, ie, rain water, plumbing, black/grey water treatment, electricity, gas etc.

Sci-utopias, I guess I’m attempting to learn from the images and their ‘vistas’, to inject the curiosity and imagination of a sci-utopia, yet at the same time something that is believable. Difficult to quantify how this will happen yet.

The history, I will work into my timeline, a drawing/diagram I hope to include in my drawings to place the project in time, what needs to happen between now and then to make the project viable, it would be interesting to then, perhaps include other projects by other people (as there are many) along similar ideas (urban food production) in the timeline as well, to flesh out the past, present and future of food. I will start drafting up a version of this soon.