At this year’s London Festival of Architecture, running for an entire month from June 20 to July 20, a major theme is Fresh Food. The theme is described thusly:
Innovative growing opportunities, debate and discussions about the development of London’s infrastructure in relation to food, the future of its markets and issues concerning food distribution and urban agriculture.
Events will include a continuous picnic through Bloomsbury, growing projects across London and demonstrations and exhibitions about urban agriculture at Cheapside Market.
The festival’s Fresh Food themed events range from the sublime to the ridiculous, the serious to the (at least seemingly) silly.
On the serious side, WHAT IF: projects Ltd, the work of architects Ulrike Stevens and Gareth Morris, poses the question:
How might we meet the demand for ‘grow-your-own’ within dense urban areas where available land is scarce?” What if:projects promote the use of vacant, neglected and undefined spaces in the inner city of London for the production of vegetables.
In their Vacant Lot project, they’re doing that very thing.
A formerly inaccessible and run-down plot of housing estate land has been transformed into a beautiful oasis of green. Seventy 1/2 tonne bags of soil have been arranged to form an allotment space. Within their individual plots, local residents are carefully tending a spectacular array of vegetables, salads, fruit and flowers. A new sense of community has emerged.
On the less serious side of things, the festival has collaborated with jellymongers Bompas & Parr to hold an Architectural Jelly Design Competition, the winner of which will be announced at the Architectural Jelly Banquet on July 4. Bompas & Parr take their jellies (that’s jello for us Americans) quite seriously:
The work of Bompas & Parr operates in the space between food and architecture. Our projects explore how the taste of food is altered through synaesthesia, performance and setting. Currently the focus of our research is jelly: jelly is the perfect site for an examination of food and architecture due to its uniquely plastic form and the historic role it has played in exploring notions of taste.
The jelly competition entry materials, and the moulds created by Bompas & Parr from them, will be auctioned to benefit Article 25, a charity that provides building expertise to aid agencies, NGOs and communities.
If you’re looking for an unusual mold for your next gelatin dessert, Bompas & Parr would be happy to make you a bespoke tinned copper mould “in any conceivable shape.” This fine kitchenware — perfect for the cook (or architect) who has everything — will set you back at least £300. Worth it, don’t you think, to be able to set St. Paul’s Cathedral — or the architectural masterpiece of your choice — on your dining table.
Tags: Bompas & Parr · London Festival of Architecture · NaBloPoMo · What-If1 Comment
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Fun! I’d love to see a gelatin Space Needle. Even without a mold, one can approximate three Seattle icons: the Kingdome, the Queen Anne “blob,” and the EMP museum. I sense a party-theme.