Feed.u.cation: propagating urban spaces through an educational food facility
Date
2016
Authors
Pappas, Anastasia
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Abstract
Globalisation is a considerable catalyst for the state of the world
today, and so it is evident through industrialisation, modernism and
capitalism that the power and spatiality of food has shifted. Food
has always brought people together as it is an universal language
that is understood by everyone. However food no longer exists as
this valued product of necessity but has now become a product
of consumerism. Large corporations control our food industry
which has lead to an economic food crisis where our basic needs
have become too expensive. This is a consequence of increased
population, demands, immoral farming methods and greed. Not
only is it affecting our economies but our natural resources. Food
production systems need to change along with our attitude
towards the environment. In an age of technology, branding and
mass production, people have become disconnected from nature,
regarding the food we eat and where it comes from.
In South Africa, this has resulted in increased food insecurity, obesity,
malnutrition and health risks. The necessity of honest, healthy and
nutritious clean-living has been lost. So how can we overcome
this pressure before we collapse as a society and as a planet? The
quality of food affects our daily productivity, well-being and psyche,
our primal need. How can architecture instigate a change for the
free food philosophy? How can it challenge profit margins in the food
system through urban contexts by re-establishing our connection
with nature?
Investigating the journey through the history of farming, politics
and food, I will observe the gradual change in the food industry
from the farmer to corporation to consumer, exposing the cultural
power plays, which can be reconsidered through architecture. This
thesis proposes an holistic approach towards propagating parks
and public spaces through food education in an urban context. It
concentrates on re-igniting the relationship between man and nature
through small-scale agriculture using small-scale architecture:
‘agritechture’. Establishing its roots in Joubert Park, Park Station
Precinct, Johannesburg, the strategy unfolds biophilia characteristics
observing the intricacy of Persian architecture and soil structures
stimulated by modular systems, grid proportions and layering. The
prairie ecosystem becomes a precedent study for heterotopian
architecture rooting itself as homogeneity. Creating catalytic nodes
of urban renewal, it unifies communities while defending its territory,
similar to the original African settlement, ‘the Kraal’.
Description
Thesis (M.Arch. (Professional))--University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, 2016
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Citation
Pappas, Anastasia (2016) Feed.u.cation: propagating urban spaces through an educational food facility, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, <http://hdl.handle.net/10539/22967>