Uses scaffolding as a basis for an adaptable, modular, multi-tiered community growing hub.

Composed of a series of versatile spaces, UpGarden can be sited as a stand-alone structure, or against walls of buildings.

Utilising readily-available materials and site-specific design, UpGarden can be erected and dismantled cheaply and quickly.  The intrinsic modularity of the kit allows for complete flexibility in how the structure takes shape at any one build.  Simple measures and commonplace materials ensure that the structure and its contents pose no safety hazard.

Shipping containers may be incorporated as part of the design structure and for secure storage spaces.

Growing spaces all benefit from rain water-harvesting at the top of the structure.

UpGarden began from a series of questions:

• What constitutes ‘free space’ in our urban environment?
• What are considered the permissible uses of that space?
• What are the obstacles and opportunities around its use by individuals/the community?
• How can we provide opportunities to people who lack growing space, to gain some independence from industrialised food production, and engage with ecology through hands-on connection?

With pressure on land at a high level, UpGarden responds to the need for new ideas about how we organise ourselves, both spatially and socially.  Scaffolding – typically viewed as an eye-sore, tolerated only for being transient and utilitarian – can alternatively be seen as possessing a kind of skeletal beauty, offering a building a fantastic, adaptable add-on space.  That aesthetic merit is emphasised by the freedom, access and opportunity for social participation, which might be generated by a creative, productive and collective use of that space.

Categories:
design

sustainability

social

experimental