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Growing a Monastery to Feed a City: Maryhill Food Exchange

Part 1 Project 2022
Philippa Cook
Mackintosh School of Architecture | UK
The Maryhill Food Exchange positions urban farming at the heart of a new sustainable food plan for Glasgow – providing a residential college, processing hub, growing site and community assembly space.

Its tectonic form borrows from monastic culture, positioning the hub as a centre for learning, growing, and living – spiritual in its connection to nature. The courtyard and cloister act as a device, simultaneously connecting and separating the residential and public areas and providing both moments of seclusion and opportunities to come together.

Natural materials connect the occupants to the tactility of their surroundings where planted orchards, vegetable gardens and wildflowers spread along the canal. The use of local stone, timber and natural insulations create a healthy indoor environment and demountable materials such as Brettstapel extend material lifecycles and reduce whole lifecycle carbon.

By cultivating sites along the canal network, the food exchange provides fresh produce to local communities year-round; this, alongside clean energy generation via anaerobic provides both climate and economic resilience to protect the community from intermittent supplies of food and energy as the climate crisis intensifies.

All the site’s needs can be met from the land and the locks.

Philippa Cook

Tutor(s)
Tilo Einert
2022
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