A MOVEABLE FEAST

The city-center development, which is run by Global Generation, was conceived to be moveable — occupying different parts of the site as construction work progresses. The collaboration aims to add to the existing garden, while giving undergraduates hands-on experience in dealing with a real client and brief.

“We are delighted to have been able to work in partnership with the skip garden,” commented Julia King from Bartlett’s.

“Full-scale making exposes students to real world challenges. Building your own structure and then inhabiting it engages you with your work in a very visceral manner, and working with Skip Garden has allowed the students to do just that. To now see the structures in the final phase is both rewarding and exciting. We hope the Skip Garden continue to work with the local community, allowing opportunities, such as this to grow.”

With each design, the students sought to embrace sustainable construction techniques through the prevalent use of reclaimed materials — sash windows are used to create a greenhouse effect, while railway sleepers form toilet cubicles.

The scheme includes various facilities that can be used by the public such as a kitchen, a dining area and multiple growing spaces, which incorporate London’s first large-scale reed bed water filtration scape.

“When people think of skips they think of construction, building and dirt,” stated Jane Riddiford, co-founder of Global Generation. “We thought less rubble and more rhubarb. We wanted to create a space that was both innovative, but served as a learning resource to the community. It has been a pleasure to work with the students at Bartlett’s. Watching their innovative structures go from prints and scale models, to real life has been a very exciting journey for us, and we very much look forward to welcoming the public to experience it for them self.”