Grow your food in the city with Urban Meal Mine

Introduction

Urban Meal Mine, an international competition that challenged the participants to create architecture that redefines how we perceive food and its relation to the city. Hosted by Unfuse, this competition explored urban farming concepts in this decade where our communities are becoming more and more inclined to hyper-consumerism. Urban Meal Mine is seen as a way to grow our food in our city in various ways.

Jury

The jury for the competition consisted of esteemed designers and academicians from around the world. The Lead Jurors for the competitions were as follows:

Yoshimi Kono, President of Kono Designs, NY (http://konodesigns.com/), Andrew Burdick, Architect, and Associate Director, Workplace Design and Strategy of Macquarie group, NY (https://www.macquarie.com/), Sepehr Mousavi, Sustainability Strategist of Plantagon, Sweden (http://www.plantagon.com/), Carey Clouse, Faculty of Landscape Architecture and Architecture, UMASS, Amherst (https://www.umass.edu/) and Stephen Ritz, Founder of Green Bronx Machine, (https://greenbronxmachine.org/)

 

Here are the best of competition projects as follows:

Winning project: Toolset for a City's Metabolism

By: Katarzyna Soltysiak, Petter Habostad

Description: We call for embracing voids within urban tissue, not necessarily meaning these should be neglected in planning but rather open for spontaneity. As a spatial tool, we propose a structure that can grow and shrink according to the needs and engagement of its creators - the locals. Constructed out of simple scaffolding elements it is fully reusable.

Jury Comments: "Simple and cost-effective urban farming approach. city dweller-oriented friendly design. it might be easy to implement." "This is a strong, practical project that thinks beyond the immediate site to take a holistic approach to this urban challenge." "This is an innovative scheme that ties together the many layers of food security across the city, using a striking kit of parts approach that considers time as well as space."

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Runner Up: We are how we eat.

By: Đạt Đinh Công, Hùng Trần, Cao Minh

Description: Nowadays, cities are facing food-related problems which come from the separation between food producers and consumers as well as urban areas and the countryside. The New Covent Market located in the Nine Elms district in London is a perfect chance to blur the separation and bring a new sustainable lifestyle to the citizens.

Jury Comments: "Nice project. I particularly appreciate the focus on the design’s relationship with its larger surrounding context, elevating the potential positive civic impacts of the project."A systematic, thorough, and detailed work... well executed."

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Runner Up: MORAY 2.0

By: Fernando Jáuregui

Description: The proposal is an agricultural innovation center that functions as a prototype of an endogenous machine. It will have spaces with the appropriate technological equipment for research and testing of cutting-edge methods. Ensuring the continuity of the species over time and its eco-friendly relationship with its ecosystem.

Jury Comments: "Beautiful landscape middle of the city and very effective approach for urban farming. This is a very bold and executed architectural scheme that returns a large swath of land to the city. While the clean plane of open green turf is visually striking, given its scale, this open space could accommodate both recreational uses as well as additional agricultural planting space while still retaining the design’s architectural goals"

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Discover the full results here: https://uni.xyz/competitions/urban-meal-mine-sustainable-farming-for-/entries

Discover the design brief here: https://uni.xyz/competitions/urban-meal-mine-sustainable-farming-for-/info/about

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Discover other design competitions to participate here: https://uni.xyz/competitions