Fed (Up)

The project tackles the issue of food waste in the modern 21st century metropolis. It does so by putting forward a design proposal for a building prototype, hybrid and infrastructural in nature, and testing it in the context of Zagreb – on a logical, yet conflicted part of the City’s territory.

The project is a hybrid food distribution and management center in Zagreb, ideally located in-between an industrial part of the city that produces most of the surplus food for donation, and another, densely-populated part where that food could be put to good use. \nThe emphasis during the design phase was on designing relationships and processes – the flows of people, food, water, waste, energy and money through the system.\nThis is how it works: first, the food donations are picked up and transported by the Center and stored in its food bank. The food bank also offers a drive-in donation system, enabling citizens to donate quickly and easily. A part of the donated food is prepared right away and distributed in a communal dining hall which functions as a student canteen and soup kitchen, but can also be used after-hours to host a variety of events. \nFor fuller and healthier meals, fresh vegetables are grown on-site in both in a hydroponics greenhouse tower and the old-fashioned way, in a large communal garden spreading south of the site. Two large public spaces – an entrance square and a marketplace – double as water collectors that fuel the hydroponics system. A smart bio-waste processing system further ensures energetic and ecological sustainability.\nThe commercial parts of the program – a drive-in fast food restaurant, a food outlet store, and the communal spaces that can be rented for events – make the complex economically self-sustainable.\nThe project is seen as a system, or field, rather than an object. It blurs the boundaries between the building and the plot, between architecture and urbanism, between structure and infrastructure. \nThe anatomy of the project is generated by its hybrid program and specific context. It could function the same, but look completely different somewhere else. \nThe translucent facade of the greenhouse gently glows during the night keeping thousands of lettuce heads warm. It serves as a sign, almost a billboard, for positive change in the city.