alexander vinet

plank road urban food hub

The Plank Road Urban Food Hub invites the public into a space surrounded by the pleasant textures of green surfaces. Open and cooperative with street space, an exterior space frame wall allows passersby to engage with the agriculture activities of the building. Green roofing assists the building in thermal passive cooling and storm water runoff mitigation, as the building seeks to manage its footprint. Steel framework provides the rigid, sturdy framework as the primary expressive material along with lighter aluminum features, allowing plant life to grow organically, lending its textures and affecting light-entry.

The Space Frame Farm angles towards Plank Road encouraging an interaction through thin aluminum tubing around which green foliage can intertwine, dappling the sunlight and casting leaf-shaped shadows, diluting heat, and providing a softer light for the planter shelves on the interior structure of the space frame. 

Sunlight Kitchen perches itself at the edge of the street corner, its double green roof flaring up at the fringes like paper caught up the air of passing traffic. The double green roof absorbs some of the thermal load while the glass-walled teaching kitchen allows ample natural sunlight to illuminate the culinary activities inside. The flared edges of the roof encourage wind gusts to pass between the roof and glass ceiling layers to maintain a cool environment.

The Breezeway is designed to give patrons visual and walk-able access to the entirety of the site. Louvered windows on a North-South axis maintain a natural ventilated dining space that connects the Commercial Kitchen to the Indoor Farm. Openings in each of the units allow for free circulation between each unit and through the entry courtyard to the farm yard.

Equinox Kitchen receives its name from the three large windows designed to catch the sunlight as it arcs over throughout the day to bath the kitchen in natural light. Part of the design was a consideration for the chefs and cooks and other workers in the kitchen, a space which is commonly thrown together as an industrious back-of-house shut-away place. Instead we decided to give them a pleasant view of the farm yard and other buildings on-site.