Providence Row Urban Garden, London (UK) 2012
The CASS / London Metropolitan University
CASS Projects (The Projects Office) provides a supportive professional environment that allows students and staff to undertake consultancy commissions and research projects, as well as providing project management support to live projects carried out by students as part of their course work.
Providence Row is a charitable organisation located on Wentworth Street in East London. It provides frontline services to vulnerable people. Core to its ethos is its formal learning programme – a cooking training scheme, music and musical instruments and bike maintenance.
Through the Aldgate Project the charity approached The Projects Office, wishing to work with us to explore the possibility of their creating an urban garden within their site to improve the user experience for their clients, staff and visitors. A new inner city urban garden would support horticultural teaching, connect the garden to their in-house café and improve the landscaping of the site.
Zoe Berman, Part III architectural assistant at The Cass Projects Office developed a feasibility study for the charity to enable them to seek funding to take the project forward. This study established a brief for a garden in the courtyard where clients could learn horticultural skills, participate in gardening and growing food – there is a focus on the edible aspect of the garden which would in turn connect to their café in growing produce.
As there is on-going building works around the parameter of the site the garden design had to be flexible so that parts could be moved and reconfigured to accommodate change.
Client: Providence Row homeless charity
Tutor: Anne Markey
Student: Zoë Berman (postgraduate, Part III architectural assistant)
Research Question:
How can urban growing be introduced to an inner city environment, and be used as a platform for horticultural learning for those seeking to overcome short and long term issues of homelessness?
Link: The CASS
United Kingdom, 0-10, Architecture, Semi-permanent, Months, +, Sponsorship, Commissioned, Graduates, Propositional, Extra-curricular, Students with tutor, London Metropolitan Univ.
