A guide to a new design process.

‍We are exploring the formation of inhabitable solids and voids through the collision of topography and brick building mass; to result in varied spatial conditions that accommodate the complex needs of an urban farming culture in Bogotá.

The Center for Urban Agriculture in Bogota is a massive form, absolute in presence; that is inserted onto, and conflicts with the changing topography of its site. This conflict acts as the catalyst which forms the shape, spatial sense, and function of the design’s interior and exterior spaces.The result of this methodology is a building that acts as a massive wall that bounds the perimeter of its steeply sloped Bogota site: on one street-front presenting its upper surface as a public promenade that overlooks the city, on a lower street-front existing as a massive structure that invites pedestrians to enter into its interiority. Within these massive walls are an extensive courtyard that remains as a terraced abstraction of the site’s original slope. When set against the absolute quality of the building, the character of the topographical environment changes to create particular scenarios by which different agricultural methods and plantings might be tested; dependent on factors created by the tension between wall and site. These may manifest as exact qualities of light, air circulation, shade, and depth of slope, that demand certain planting strategies to be explored in a meticulous manner.

Additionally, interior-focused methods of agricultural production are addressed in the depth of the building, through a variety of greenhouse and hydroponic settings. In the macro-scale of the building, these agricultural situations seeks to create microcosmic environments, which synthesize the wide range of urban sites that potentially may be used for small scale agriculture throughout Bogota.The material, brick is used for its impenetrable, massive quality that lends distinction between interiority and exteriority, solidity and void, light and dark. This idea of massive sensation, and its distinction is essential to this work at every scale.

The Center for Urban Farming in Bogota, by the means above seeks to address the economic and social disparity present in Bogota’s current massive urban growth; and provide a place where individuals and communities can learn how they might see more clearly, and benefit themselves and the city in which they reside through the practice of urban agriculture.