Sprout from Sprawl - Urban Greenhouse

What was the concept behind the design?
The concept is that I wanted to put a greenhouse inside the urban landscape rather than segregating the land as we currently do. Greenhouses dominate land in the Netherlands on an industrial scale to match the Netherland's rank as the world's second largest vegetable exporter. The brief asks to combine urban farming with retail, so I closed the distance between food production and selling and buying food. Most of the greenhouse is very industrial, but the shop is intended to be warm and homely in character and outside is an area totally for local inhabitants to enjoy. Part of the motivation for integrating the greenhouse+grocery shop into a landscape/park is to ensure that they both stay relevant and accessible.

The form of the building is an inverse of the traditional greenhouse. Initially I wanted to title the project "The Space Between" to explore pockets of urban green spaces that can be parasitised for urban agriculture, water retention, and biodiversity. But I needed to focus on building a high yield system to make use of the land and to support the commercial aspect. "The Space Between" was heading towards concepts of rewilding and that isn't in line with the brief. Instead I looked at the literal morphological space between and decided the Y-shaped greenhouse is better because it can collect rainwater easily and it looks very dramatic. 

My fascination in rewilding/bioswales/more interesting terrain stemmed from my visit to Nieuw Crooswijk in late January. I noticed that there were a lot of blank park spaces of simple green grass. Maybe it was due to Covid rules but they didn't look used despite being right in the middle of the neighbourhoods. Further on there is a famous park in Rotterdam along the Kralingseplas, a lake. Aside from the abundance of trees, grass, and water, it was a flat and simple landscape. Not fun or engaging or interesting or playful. I decided I would address that in my design, hence the integration of slopes and water. Given more time, I would've liked to develop the landscape much further to really integrate different types of plants and materials.

I also integrated the use of brick, which I wanted to use more in the landscape but due to time constraints I focused on parametrically generating an interesting brickwork facade. The only issue is that it is not fully worked out; a lot of the bricks are intersecting and it's really just conceptual and aesthetically pleasing. The reason I chose brick is because it's very present in Dutch design and the first choice of material in any development. Brick has a lot of potential with robotic design and parametric design which makes it interesting. It also has a history of begin beautifully applied, which is not often the case today. On my visit to the site, I saw really lovely brickwork in the facades of the new housing, so I wanted to respect and emulate that to some degree.

The retail side of the concept is a bit thin, but I made sure to include separate circulation solutions for the public user and for the private user, an employee in the building. The location of the shop is also to align it with the magazine, which is close to Kerkhoflaan, making it accessible by road for loading and unloading goods or transporting waste. Inside the shop the fresh goods are placed close to the entrance and refillable goods are placed at the back against the brick wall. Because these are all highly visible they should attract attention and at least inspire people nearby to consider just refilling their empty food containers rather than buying the whole thing, packaging and all, again.

How will the project transform with passing time?

It is not intended to expand. I did not calculate the yield this type of project can bring but the intention is not indefinite growth as that would be contrary to the issue of land being (over)consumed by agriculture. It is meant to sustain itself, though I am not sure about how realistic vertical farms are in the Netherlands; there have been some notable startups in the past few years which have come and gone. Urban Greenhouse is meant to encourage locals to farm for themselves and explore small-scale methods of production. It also provides a platform for locals to learn about composting and water harvesting, as these are tactics applied inside the system and outside in the wild park.