Agro-culture center for refugees integration in Hamburg

Every year, war and persecution, but also poverty, violence and emergency force millions of people to leave their homes and flee to Europe. Once in the arrival country, they face the difficulties of integration. This project explores by the example of Hamburg, how food and agriculture can be used as a common language for a new typology of social centers.

Although the complex problem of integration is more a political than an architectural issue, this project is the opportunity to propose a local solution to a global problem. By understanding that architecture can be the mechanism to create and reinforce a common identity between refugees and local citizens, the project aims to improve the integration process using agriculture and food as the linking element. Everyone eats. Agriculture is present throughout the majority of the cultures. Food can play an important role in the way we relate to other people. It is also a huge cultural asset: we often access distant cultures through their cooking traditions. Food can be a trigger for storytelling and conversation. Involving food can be a powerful way of inviting people to share their cultural tradition, their story and their knowledge. In this context, the project proposition consists of two actions after analysing the conflict areas: assignment of a certain number of social houses in the district and creation of a new typology of community center capable of supplying the required program. Both actions lead to a network of meeting points for the neighbourhood. The center is thought as a space that serves the enjoyment of the whole neighbourhood, but which is focused on refugee integration and that consists of two buildings: a milestone aiming at a flower farm and a main building which contains the majority of the program dedicated to urban farming, gastronomy and culture. In order to be able to cultivate during most of the year, the building is projected as a big greenhouse where the crops form the facade and where the program takes place indoors. In this way, a comfortable microclimate is created. In between is a spacious gap that serves as an inner public space. The spaces are designed with semipermeable partitions that face the spacious gap, making them highly open to the public, flexible and adaptable to diverse activities, ranging from workshops and meetings to other events. The building opens itself to daylight through the whole envelope, where the colours of the facade change with the seasons.