The Agricultural Cooperative and Learning Community in Legrad Village

A design strategy that reflects and emphasizes identified cultural, productive and building activities specific to the countryside. The aim of the Cooperative is to provide a physical space shaped by the context as a framework to strengthen the community and encourage economic development without losing the qualities of rural life.

Like most rural areas today, Legrad is facing problems of depopulation as a result of decreased economic activities, being unable to compete with industrial agriculture. The aim of the cooperative is to provide a framework to encourage social and productive activities. Qualities of rural communities are characterized by strong social cohesion, sense of community and belonging which promises potential for action and change if provided with the right tools. It is imagined as a place of connections, gathering, encounters, exchange and learning, promoting new knowledge for sustainable agricultural production. When looking at the built context, concentrating on the auxiliary buildings, their configurations and materialization show their building process, with each layer of time clearly visible. Each object is a combination of different functional elements merged together at certain points in time, never finished and open to change. The design reflects the context by following the processes that shape the environment, temporality and overlapping. The building is thought of as a collage of different activities, each having a distinct form to fit the assigned function. When assembled, the cooperative is a hybrid of all activities, more than a sum of parts as new instances, anomalies and connections develop through overlapping and assembling the collage. The site is imagined as a testing ground for sustainable agriculture practices based on permaculture and biodynamics as it addresses the problem of fragmented parcellation. The cooperative is divided into three layers with distinct identities and conditions. The underground which is kept unheated, serves as infrastructure for the cooperative, housing storage, technical spaces and circular biowaste and water management systems, ensuring responsible use of resources. The roof is the main place of learning and research by exposing the production processes. The ground platform is then shaped by the two layers, it is a covered piece of the field, a space left undefined but suggesting habitation, gathering, and use.