The Food Park

Estate regeneration through food, landscape and linear housing.

Collage view of a brick arch beneath a planted podium with a woman leaning on a pier and people resting on the slope.

Year: 2023
Place: Hackney, London
Project: M.Arch thesis, Architectural Association
Context: London Borough of Hackney’s Estate Regeneration programme
Theme: Food economy, augmented landscape, linear residential blocks

The project

Housing estates are a vast part of UK cities, and they shape the social fabric.

Their regeneration has often run into oversimplified spatial qualities, a poor public realm, limited affordability for vulnerable groups and little environmental resilience.

The Food Park explores food-related initiatives, augmented landscapes and linear forms as drivers of positive urban change. Set within Hackney’s Estate Regeneration programme and its local food trends, the proposal combines food-economy uses, augmented landscapes and new linear residential blocks to give resilience and resources to both the estate and its neighbourhood.

The Food Park

01 / Site

A new grain for the estate

Rendered plan of long green-roofed housing blocks among existing buildings and a line of trees. — 02Site plan.

Exploded axonometric separating housing blocks, podium, ground floor and glasshouse structures. — 03The multi-layered model of the Food Park: housing blocks, podium, ground and glasshouses.

The Food Park

02 / Section views

Podium, ground and corridor

Ground-floor arcade with louvred screens, a brick arch and a family walking through. — 04The permeable groundAn arcade of louvred screens and brick arches opens the estate at street level.

Cutaway axonometric of a long block with homes beside a growing corridor. — 05Agricultural corridorHomes sit beside a growing corridor that runs the length of the block.